Of Chaos and Flame
by Lens of Sanity
Summary: Ginny goes nuts during HBP and Harry's wand can blast golden flames… With friends dying and enemies more powerful than ever, it's time to show the world that Harry is no longer JUST the Boy-Who-Lived… Fights, Magic, and a complex Pairing…
1. Prologue: Godric's Hollow

','

Of Chaos and Flame  
by Lens of Sanity

','

Prologue: Godric's Hollow

','

Visible by nothing save late evening's twilight, the glowing pinpricks of starlight, and a tiny slash of the moon's waning crescent, an exhausted man looked down once again in disbelief, staring at the impossible shaft of holly gripped hard in his clenched right fist.

Too much had happened that day.

Too much.

Too much with not enough rest.

Both emotionally and physically, the man found himself overtaxed beyond the point of mere simple fatigue, exhaustion jolting across each synapse and pumping through every capillary.

Dirty knuckles, tired limbs, and eyes tight from grief, he stood tall looking over at his opponent, both seeing and feeling the flash of fear flit across his red, serpentine gaze. He exulted in that fear, for at this time and in this place, the man knew he could not, _would not_ be beaten.

Not today.

No more running.

This was home, or as close to it as the man could ever know. Dark hair, midnight past black, whipped across his face as his coat billowed with the magic in the air. He had the home field advantage, and on this night, this night his enemy _would_ flee from him.

What the girl had told him was true he realised in that instant.

He _was_ Harry Potter, with everything that name entailed.

And so, with three purple slashes of impossibility from the tip of Harry Potter's wand, three bands of violet insanity, Lord Voldemort fled in terror from his prophesised foe.

And so it was that the child of destiny laughed in pure ecstasy, engulfing the world in golden flames.

','


	2. Chocolate Brown to Midnight Blue

','

It's been a year and I'm finally back! And good news, it's now a **_Harry Centric_** Fic

**Opening Announcement**; I'm a fan of using obscure characters, as you probably know if you've read my other stuff. Hell, my first story had Perce and Molly Weasley two of Harry best mates, and they were both _total_ _badasses_. Nevermind how off the rails characters selection became in the Azkaban story!  
So bear with me on a few things; Hermione has a little spin _not oft used _ in FanFic, Harry is _meant_ to come across more or less canon, at least early on… There will be a central character and a baddy showing up in Act Two, neither of whom I believe have _ever_ been seen before…  
Lastly, CH1 opens with the prat version of Ginny, even going so far as to ham her up to an unnecessary degree…

','

Of Chaos and Flame  
by Lens of Sanity

','

Chapter One: Chocolate Brown to Midnight Blue

','

It was late on a Friday evening and Ginny Weasley was enthusiastically reading the brand new edition of Witch Weekly, one of her favourite presents ever was when her mother promised to pay for the subscription every year on her birthday. This was one of many reasons that Fridays were the best day of the week when you were the prettiest member of an old, if ignoble Line.

Absently she noticed that it was the last week of June and that tomorrow would be her and her boyfriend's two week anniversary. That was another cause for her abundant happiness, and her confident declaration of being the prettiest Weasley; her boyfriend was none other than Harry Potter.

That's right; _the_ Harry Potter.

She had known since they had first met at the tender age of ten years old, that the two were destined to be together, and if she was honest with herself she'd known her whole entire life. The tale of the _Boy Who Lived_ was always her favourite bedtime story back when her father had read to her as a little girl. And the best game growing up was marrying the scar faced Harry Potter teddy bear her friend Luna had once owned. Not that she would _ever_ tell a soul about that, as she was very grown up now and people -especially Harry- knowing about her doing _that_ would be simply mortifying.

Following her custom on finally allowing herself to open the weekly magazine, she leafed directly to the Astrological Signs page searching for what the coming week would bring. She knew from Divination that Horoscopes were very important, as the past two weeks had been filled with prosperity for all Leos, and Ginny was incredibly eager to find out how best to behave in the upcoming seven days.

'_The situation will considerably improve in the final part of the month when you, having Venus right beside you, will be able to enter the gates of love paradise, surrounded by an aura of magnetism and sex appeal. There are new discoveries on the erotic realm in store for you, and adventure will be waiting for you when travelling, in a cultural or educational environment.'_

The Sun's ruby glare on the horizon was noted by the fiery haired fifteen -nearly sixteen- year old, as she had once more concluded that Fridays were great, and that things are even better in the world when your name was Ginny Weasley.

Her vacuous smile began to falter a little as a Galleon, the only one in her possession, was felt as it warmed uncomfortably in her pocket. After a long moment understanding dawned. "The Dumbledore's Army Coin, of course," she ejaculated this thought quite loudly from her seat in the school library, startling several second years.

Even though she was the one who named the organisation when they were pooling options, Ginny had always thought _Potter's Army_ had a much better ring to it. Only at the time she had still been a little too shy in her boyfriend's presence to say so out loud, hesitant that the boy would not appreciate her exuberance.

After folding the magazine under her arm and collecting her wand, Ginny took off in search of the adventure promised her in the magazine, vacant smile never wavering.

','

On her way to the seventh floor corridor with a familiar tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, the redhead encountered her brother and the bushy haired brunette girl he had always been too thick and prattish to ask out. From his slouched yet wary position up against a wall, it was Neville who was first to spot Ginny's last and oldest friend Luna, serenely walking up from the direction of Ravenclaw Tower.

"Hey Hermione, where is Harry are we doing an end of year D.A. or something?" Ginny asked, turning back toward the staircase and the Room of Requirement.

Ron grabbed her arm to prevent the fifteen year old from continuing, as her brother said, "We can't go that way, Tonks and Professor Lupin are over there."

"Okay, I'm sure they wouldn't mind if we were out of bounds but whatever." With a huff Ginny asked, "Where is my boyfriend anyway?"

After dragging the group into one of Hogwarts' many abandoned classrooms Hermione used a never before seen privacy charm, going on at length declaring that it would make anyone else hear nothing but an unidentified buzzing. Ron and the muggleborn girl then went about outlining what they knew of tonight's events.

Harry had taken his Invisibility Cloak and gone somewhere with Headmaster Dumbledore. Ginny, Luna, and Neville all simultaneously came to the conclusion that the other two knew more than they were saying. The three refrained from asking as always, knowing from experience that the 'Golden Trio' -as they were sometimes called- _never_ give out too much information when they didn't have to.

Case and point; everybody _knew_ that Harry had killed at least two of his Defence Professors, and was responsible for Umbridge's unexplained removal last year, but the school at large had no idea as to any of the hopefully sordid details.

Hermione was obviously sceptical that the school was actually in any danger, more wary of these kinds of things ever since the events of last summer, and the death of Sirius Black. Regardless of Hermione's own feelings she handed out a tiny snifter of something called _Felix Felicis_ which the brunette explained would grant Liquid Luck to the drinker. Harry seemed to have won it in a competition earlier in the year and wanted them to drink it in the unlikely event of a Death Eater attack on Hogwarts.

"Well it _is _the end of the school year Hermione, something crazy always happens to Harry. I think we should take the warning seriously and do as he asked." This was quite the pragmatic attitude from Neville, one which Luna agreed with, while appearing far more focused than her signature dreamy exterior.

Ginny voiced her opinion, "Well if Draco Malfoy really _has_ been up to something all year, he'd probably do something on the day he knows the Headmaster is away. Wouldn't he?"

"Fine," the brunette acquiesced, "Ron, you keep an eye on the map and take Ginny and Neville with you, while Luna and I go watch over Professor Snape's office. Everyone remember to keep your Potion safe and not drink it until you really need it because there is probably only about twenty to twenty-five minutes worth before it runs out."

They would be in for a long and boring wait.

Ginny went back to her magazine after only a few minutes.

','

Ginny Weasley was bored.

She'd been forced by Ron to put away her copy of Witch Weekly because she wasn't looking worried enough. 'It's not like anything bad could happen, Harry will come and save the day if any Death Eaters actually do come,' the redhead thought to herself as she mourned the loss of her favourite _'book.'_

"They are here, coming through to the seventh floor. That prick Malfoy is leading some guys named Gibbon and Yaxley. Oh shit Fenrir Greyback." Ron looked to his friends and saw Neville with an unaccustomed look of fury across the boy's face. He must have heard the same stories as Ron had, violence and a penchant for little girls. "There are six, including that werewolf Greyback."

Ginny immediately jumped out and started hexing up a storm, landing her favourite Bat Bogey Hex, _Chiroptera _ and a simple Blasting Curse _Reducto _ before everything went black as night.

"This is the twins' Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, get back and get down NOW!" the elder Weasley roared in command, not having the time to be surprised at his friends instant obedience.

As he scrambled into Ron's fall-back room Neville asked, "I got winged by a cutter, did either of you two get hit?"

The two Weasley's checked their bodies over and both shook their heads, uninjured and fine. "We have to get to the Order as fast as we can," Ron checked the map in the dim light and after a while finished, "okay, we're clear follow me."

The three managed to traverse across two long corridors and down a curving flight of stairs, eventually coming across Remus Lupin and Filius Flitwick, who they brought up to speed as to the Death Eater situation. The Charms Professor sped off at a remarkable pace given his size and the werewolf began arguing for the three to be sent to the safety of their dormitories.

Ten minutes of circular argument later Ron bellowed, "We promised Harry! We are _not_ going anywher-," an almightily crash emanating from the direction of the Headmasters office interrupted the deceleration, and the four headed off running straight into a warzone.

','

Half an hour later an orange cutting jinx slashed into the redheads left forearm, bringing with it tears to her eyes, "Owie, _Diffindo!_" As her own severing charm opened a shallow cut into the cloaked figure's chest, she thought that, worse than the pain, she'd now have to fight while making sure not to get bloodstains on her new pants.

Those pants had been expensive after all.

Ginny had been retreating back toward the Room of Requirement, trading shots, shielding, and dodging scary unfamiliar spells for the past few minutes or so. Having swallowed down the few drops of Lucky Potion a while ago, she'd found herself fighting with a strange feeling she never had before; light, perhaps unconcerned may have been a good way to describe it.

On a whim she did a cartwheel while giggling, and a wave of power crashed over her, watching as a thick bolt of deep green light zoomed harmlessly over her shoulder, 'Te-he, that one was close.'

"_Stoop-aff-fye!"_ she yelled fervently in high spirits, causing a jet of red shot from her cool magic stick to impact the chest of the mean Death Eater. "Whoo, I rule!"

Looking around the deserted hallway Ginny figured out that she had become separated from the rest of her friends, and seeing the door across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy was wedged open, stylishly she moved over to take a look.

_"Crucio!"_

"Woop," the flame haired young woman dove into a room made distinctive by towers of junk, leftovers of a thousand failed experiments, and the contraband of countless Hogwarts students. She slammed the door shut and levitated a large oak table, heavily stained and missing a leg, making sure it was wedged to keep the door closed.

"Hmm, it's only one Death Eater, why am I running from the bad guys?" she mused to herself out loud, the door handle rattling a few times behind her, and a few hollow thumps indicating unsuccessful attempts to blast through a magically enhanced Hogwarts door. For whatever reason Ginny felt it would be a good idea to explore the room a little, this seemed to be appropriate as the mean Unforgivable using Death Eater would eventually go away.

As she came to a cupboard on which rested the chipped bust of an ugly old warlock, Ginny impulsively decided to take a look, finding a Potions textbook which looked brand new on the surface but was all tattered on the inside. "_Advanced Potion Making by Libatius Borage_, I think this is on next year's book list," the girl muttered aloud to herself absently as she stuck the thing into an oversized robe pocket.

"I think you are correct little girl," responded a young and decidedly menacing voice.

Wand in hand she spun quickly and found herself face to face with not one, but _twenty_ black cloaked and silver masked adults. Death Eaters, each one seemingly eyeing her with a relaxed confidence, a mouse to cat analogy came to mind unbidden and unwanted.

'Eep.'

Those at the back appeared to be stepping out of some kind of magical wardrobe, her eyes span to the still barricaded door and she realised it was on the far side of the cloaked figures, way, way out of reach.

Worriedly she feigned confidence, "I've always been fairly decent at the subject, and it's good I have next year's book already. Maybe I can study over the summer?" the _Felix Felicis_ was still working; she could feel it urging her to display exactly how nervous she really was, and her tone was very, very worried, poorly pretending an aloof self-assurance.

Still, Ginny really didn't know what to do.

The man, who was assumed to be the leader as he is the one who was talking, leered blatantly at her chest, gesturing to the red and gold of her school tie as he spoke, "So we have a Griffindor welcoming committee, here I was under the impression the Dark Mark had been set off ordering us reinforcements to arrive… Does big bad Dumbly-dore station sweet little girls to defend his castle now?"

Ginny didn't know what to do.

She couldn't _do_ anything. How could a girl with only a couple of years magical training, and one year under Harry, 'this is _not_ the time for naughty thoughts Ginny Weasley,' have possibly done anything about a score of fully trained Death Eaters? Nothing that's what, and she wanted to cry thinking about it.

"Well girl speak up, or did your mother fail to teach you proper manners? We can be very _persuasive_ in our teaching methods I'll have you know."

'Harry, I need Harry. He will rescue me. That's what he does, that's what he's for. He rescues his girlfriend when she is in danger.'

The leader of the masked men grew impatient, demanding a loud and pointed, "Well?"

In that single horrifying moment it suddenly descended on the redhead that she had it all backwards. Harry Potter, _the_ Harry Potter, did not exist to save _her_, not in the least. So she was going to die, here, in this mostly forgotten room. Killed by merciless evil wizards, and there was not one thing in the world she could do to stop it.

That was when _Felix_ in her system triggered something, something deep, something half buried. A rippling in her mind, or her magic, or maybe very being. It nudged something to shake loose and change. Like a kernel of toughness in her very _soul_, a stone granite-hard began to break, crumble to dust and dissolve, losing its never before acknowledged hold on the girl.

And just like that Ginny Weasley knew what to do.

'Fire.'

'Yes, fire. It's always been fire.' Ginny remembered the first time she made fire happen consciously, Professor Lupin had the foresight to bring Burn Salve to that lesson, which was good because otherwise poor Colin might have had permanent scaring.

'Fire.'

'Yes, I can destroy twenty pathetic little Death Eaters easily. I just need to use fire.'

With a twisted smile never before seen cross the flame haired woman's face, she conjured _fyre_ for the first time in her short life. She found herself laughing at their screams, as her enemies were consumed in beautiful warmth.

','

With a predatory lope the redhead stalked through the corridors of Hogwarts, Ginny, 'kn-euw,' she drew out the word long in her mind, 'kn-o, not Ginny. Ginny makes me sound like a house-elf or some such thing. I will be Ginevra from now on I think,' the three syllable title suddenly seemed far more appropriate, grander or at the very least _bigger_ maybe. She was stalking about the halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry looking for an opponent.

It had come to her in a flash of realisation, an instant of clarity. She owed a Life Debt to Harry Potter, it was so obvious now. Her life, her being, Merlin save her, her very _soul_, existed for one purpose; to aid Harry Potter.

She had been wrong these past few years, thinking the man her own personal saviour, the sort right out of a Beedle Tale. 'Gods in Heaven I let my mother talk me into doing _that_,' she shuddered at the implications. No, Harry was not her private knight in shining armour. Ginevra though, she-, well she was not so much his girlfriend, as she was his _property_.

Well that was probably taking things too far, but it was closer to what the man deserved compared to how she'd been treating him so far.

The clarity, things were just so obvious now, and it was also obvious that Harry would want her to stop Death Eaters today, protect the school like he would, and even though the Lucky Potion wore off several minutes ago, the resolve to stop Harry's enemies was strong.

"_Incendio, Chiroptera, Protego, Reducto,"_ spying her eldest brother was in trouble she rolled to her left snapping off a second, _"Reducto."_

Five swift spells shouted out, one a shield barely strong enough to deflect a mass of brown aimed at impacting her. A large yellow haired man was taken in the side by the heavy blasting curse and began tossing about Unforgivables like they were candy.

Unexpectedly the redhead's attention was directed toward the stairwell she believed leads to the Astronomy Tower, and an easily recognised mass of wild raven hair descended a few moments later, glower firmly attached to his face.

"Harry, where did you come from?" Ginevra cried, stupid question in her opinion, and fortunately there was no time for him to answer her. He put his head down and sprinted forward, narrowly avoiding a blast that erupted over his head, showering them all in bits of wall.

Harry aimed a hex from the floor at the enormous blond Death Eater who was causing most of the chaos, _"Impactus!"_ the man gave a howl of pain as the spell hit him in the face and he wheeled around staggering.

A dispassionate part of Ginevra's mind noted the man must have shielded most of that spell somehow, to even be on his feet. The large man then tried bounding away after the two other black cloaks which were now retreating, and her midnight blue eyes began to narrow in fury.

'You are not getting away from me that easily sunshine.'

She sprinted with the last of her waning strength, and flying round a corner Ginevra put as much power as she could into channelling fire once more _"Incendio!"_ The most powerful spell she could cast conjured a ball of flame twice the size of her head and it raced toward the towering Death Eater. His hastily raised shield cracked at the onslaught of heat and the fifteen year old closed on the man, sending a trio of overpowered blasting hexes.

"_Reducto, Reducto, REDUCTO!"_

The last left her head swimming as it took far more magical strength from her than she had ever thought possible, but it impacted squarely on his chest taking the man's feet from under him, and he hit the far wall with a dull crunch.

Stumbling toward the prone form her wand dropped from her shaking grip and she noticed the man's chest was cracked and gaping, but despite everything he was still alive. 'Not for long,' she thought to herself as her knuckles smashed into the Death Eaters ribs, again and again …and again.

Ginevra smiled sweetly as she locked gazes with the blond mountain of a man, she then forcefully ploughed her right hand deep into his exposed chest cavity. Squeezing, the spark of life slowly drained from his eyes as the redhead observed, still smiling. The brother and sister, who would later turn out to be Amycus and Alecto Carrow, had long since fled by this time. They would never learn how good a decision they had made.

Several minutes and a few cleaning charms later Ginevra returned to the stairwell leading to the Astronomy Tower, and the much abused site of tonight's main battle.

"Gin, you got that damned werewolf off me with the Reductor Curse just in time. Can you even imagine what my fiancé would say if I came back all scared and broken?" He said it with a cavalier grace the younger woman was well accustomed to.

"Let's face it Bill, what's Veela Aura have when stacked up against your good old fashioned charms? You'd have been fine regardless."

"You're right about that one lil' spitfire."

Strangely the hated nickname from her youth did not faze the woman as it once had. "Less of the _little_ or I'll start wondering around the Burrow starkers until you beg for mercy."

With a wary nod and a strange look, her oldest brother continued, "You get the boy, Neville? and I'll take Flitwick. I need to keep my wand out on the off chance they come back."

"No problem," Ginevra said as she complied with the request, "any idea what happened tonight Bill?"

"Not a clue."

With a shrug the two made their way to the hospital wing.

','

Snape had murdered Headmaster Dumbledore on top of the Astronomy Tower.

Yeah.

That's what happened tonight.

It was the reason why Harry was in such a rush to follow Death Eaters when he charged through the battle; he was trying to kill yet another of his Defence Against the Dark Arts Professors. The female Weasley didn't know the old man, having only spoken to him in passing a few times at Grimmauld Place, but she knew enough that Harry was going to need help getting through this. With her newfound understanding of the world, Ginevra found herself looking at the situation completely differently than she would have only a few hours beforehand. So she knew that it was Hermione and not her, who was the one which should be there for him, while he went about _not_ talking about it in that way he did.

This was _not_ the worst news to come from tonight's battle however.

"But he had taken his Lucky Potion, I know he had." Hermione, even more so than Luna, was the girl Ginevra counted as her closest female friend. Don't mistake this to mean she had no friends of her own of course; Ginevra was quite popular in her year, and among the boys some years beyond. Only those others were simply school children who had never been close to this war in the same way her family had, fighting and possibly dying on the front lines.

"Yes, he had Ms. Granger. We believe that is part of the reason why this happened." They'd told the story of using a small amount of _Felix Felicis_ to the Griffindor Head of House and McGonagall had in turn gone to Professor Slughorn, an expert opinion seeming to be the best idea.

In the space of ten seconds he had taken three cutting wounds, two of which were cursed with some form of purple flames, as well as two Killing Curses shot off by that blond man Ginevra managed to dispatch. Who knew how many people he saved in those ten seconds, but one thing was certain; Hermione Granger would have been introduced to a big old flash of green had he not been taking part in the battle this evening.

"Ron can't be dead," Hermione wailed, "he just _can't_ be!"

He was though, she'd never said it out loud but Ron had always been her favourite brother. Everyone assumed it would be Bill because the two got along so well, but she and Ron had always been close growing up in the safety of the Burrow, good times getting back at the twins and their various pranks, summers spent annoying Percy.

He'd have liked to go down in that way though, Ginevra knew that to her bones, taking a curse and saving the girl, that's the man Ron had always aspired to be.

"What are you smiling about!" Hermione screamed in the younger girl's face, madness and grief getting the better of her. Locking eyes Ginevra just voiced her thoughts, the truth about a man who'd given his life to save hers.

Then Ginevra stalked from the room, leaving behind her grief stricken parents, her friends, and the deceased shell that was once her favourite brother.

','

'I killed a man today.'

Ginevra was alone in her bathroom in the girl's dormitory, all alone inside Griffindor tower, as it was very late at night. The woman was looking down at her bloodstained hands, blood dried brown and not red when it was left to dry, she was mildly surprised to learn. There was far more on her right hand than her left, under her nails and all across her knuckles.

'I guess I killed like twenty people today, but those others don't really count do they girl?' Her memory of what happened in the Room of Requirement was murky, like something done long ago or when you were half asleep. Whatever it was definitely _happened_, but you hardly remembered it. She couldn't even begin to guess what spell was used, all she knew was that it felt like... home, a hug and hearthfire in the depths of winter.

'So I killed a man, ended his life, and I did it on purpose.'

Looking into the mirror and gazing again at her refection, the fifteen -nearly sixteen- year old was once more surprised to see her eyes had changed. Where they were once a bright chocolate brown, big and by all accounts beautiful, now however they were a deep dark blue, midnight close to black. Familiar in a way that she was not quite able to place, but one thing she knew for sure was that they were _alive_ in a way she had never seen when looking at her own face in the mirror.

There was a spark to be seen now, something she was certain was important.

'I should shower, cuts, dirt, bruises, and blood. I should definitely shower.' Ginevra stuck her thumb into her mouth then, taking a long moment to simply experience the flavour of a man whose life she had ended.

'…'

Swirling a single robe over her naked form she took off, down the stairs from the girl's dormitory. It was very late, under normal circumstances where last night _didn't_ include a battle, or when classes were in session, this time of day would be fair game for early risers. These were not normal circumstances and so she passed through a common room completely devoid of students, and made her way up to the sixth years' dormitory, light on her feet from years spent stealing her brothers' broomsticks in the dead of night.

Harry was not awake, although it was clear his night had been far from restful. Briefly wishing she had bothered learning that privacy spell Hermione used earlier, Ginevra decided to stick with the only one she knew, a stripped down version of a _Cone of Silence_ learned in O.W.L. Charms class.

Sensing someone's presence the man's green eyes snapped open and locked onto blue, after a long moment he hoarsely spoke, "Ginny?"

Containing a wince at her old name she pulled her hands behind her head and dragged off the single layer of clothing. "Hello Harry."

His stare never shifted from her eyes, which given his age was saying something, and he just looked into her for the longest time. "Gin-," she took a kiss from him, unusual in itself as she had never before initiated the experience.

"When I leave I am not going to be a virgin anymore Harry, and after last night I think you may need this even more than I."

The man did not respond with words.

Collapsed with exhaustion but unable to sleep, the woman felt she should be disgusted, she _should_ but patently she was not. Blood of a dead man still under her nails and covering the backs of her hands, her own blood some of it from cuts and scrapes, sweat matted hair, drenched bodily fluids soaking their way into the mattress she was sprawled across. The crimson haired woman was also in quite a large amount of pain, but strangely even though most of it was bad, all of it felt so very good, so very right.

'Things are different now, everything has changed, and some of it is not awful.'

Her contemplation stilled for the longest time, floating in the absence of everything, consciously accepting oblivion.

'Today was a good day.'

','


	3. A New Dawn

','

The previous chapter was almost titled _Level Twenty is Awesome_, or maybe _Magikarp Power Activate_, heh! _Also_ we saw why _Felix Felicis_ is **not** the one shot solution to every problem: i.e. it improves the odds of Heroic Sacrifice  
More of the new Gin here, with the next chapter bringing in the other main characters

','

Of Chaos and Flame  
by Lens of Sanity

','

Chapter Two: A New Dawn

','

Ginevra woke to the light of noonday sunlight and was treated to the barest fraction of a moment where thought and understanding had not yet engaged, that brief span of time where a person has no idea who or where they are.

It was peaceful.

Aches and pains assaulted her senses first, some in places she had never experienced much soreness ever before. She was in her own bed in Griffindor fifth year girls' dormitory, why this was worthy of note saying as she awoke here every day, she did not yet know. Nevertheless the redhead noted it, and it was the unfamiliar smells which jostled their way into the forefront of her awareness.

Events of the previous twenty four hours then crash down into her mind, some of the confusion beginning to make sense. Some but far from all, Ginevra knew this too. Far too much had happened in the woman's recent history to be dealt with swiftly, but for now it was enough to know that things had changed and she was no longer the same.

Uncaring about neither her state of undress nor her physical condition, Ginevra extricated herself from her bedding and strode self-assuredly across the room in search of a thorough morning cleansing. Afternoon now had she bothered to check the time, which she didn't because she had only returned four and a half hours ago, crashing directly into sleep.

Some time passed and she found herself dressing for the day, it was quite amusing the lengths she used to go to, deciding which outfit to wear on a morning, and fussing on her physical appearance. Piles and piles of crap adorned her personal space, little accessories she had made herself, stylised robes and personally tailored clothing. Smiling at the sight she chose something simple and carelessly tied back her freshly washed hair into a high ponytail.

Looking herself over critically in the full length mirror she came to a conclusion as startling as it was obvious; she really had become one attractive young woman. All the self delusional bullshit she used to put herself through, bah, it had been nothing save insecure childishness.

'Well kiddo,' she thought to herself, 'today is a new day, what are you going to do with yourself?'

Strangely she didn't have an overwhelming urge to seek out Harry Potter, he was alive and safe, and as of a few hours ago he was more than sated. So today was not about him, anymore than anything could be said to _not_ be about Harry Potter at any rate.

Sweeping toward the seventh floor Ginevra looked over the area where, just last night, she and her friends had been fighting and dying and killing their enemies. From the discussion yesterday she knew the battle had been two for two; Albus Dumbledore and Ronald Weasley lost for Harry's side, with Gibbon and Rowle absent from Tom's ranks.

Really that was what this all came down to in her opinion, the two most significant male influences in her life duking it out over who got to be king. Clearly Ginevra never even had a doubt as to which she would stand for, yet she had made sure to get the blond man's name when learning the full story of the night's events.

Thorfinn Rowle.

'I'd kill him again in a heartbeat' she thought, looking at the discoloured stone of the hallway, the site she'd last seen the man alive. Idly Ginevra made her way to the Come and Go Room and requested the place containing many things, hoping that seeing the room again would draw out more memories. Had she known of the existence of a Pensieve Ginevra would have gone to considerable effort to locate one, as she was incredibly curious about what actually happened here.

Hefting a bloodstained axe she traced the scorch marks left in this place, there were no bodies and even the wardrobe they had come through -which she'd been informed was in fact a Vanishing Cabinet- was gone, along with most of the row behind the thing.

'Nothing,' she had no idea what had happened. _"Incendio"_ sent a small ball of flame at a stuffed barn owl and she watched it burn slowly.

'That took way too much energy.' It was true, she'd have noticed how hard accessing her magic was last night, had she not been otherwise absorbed in everything else that was happening. _"Incendio"_ burned a three legged stool which was of no use to anyone.

'That is something different,' she mused in her own head, 'it being difficult to cast spells is probably just magical exhaustion but the feeling there. Churning and crashing waves, it's so chaotic, I've never felt anything like that before.'

Deciding she wasn't getting any answers standing there like an idiot, Ginevra went in search of something to eat, and hopefully somewhere quiet to think.

','

"Have you seen him today Ginny?" she had barely made it to the Great Hall before lunch was over, and the food vanished about twenty seconds after she had claimed a plate of food. So the redhead was now eating it from her knees, flying in the face of good Pureblood customs and etiquette.

"He's probably still resting, he had quite a rough night," 'and an even rougher morning,' Ginevra added silently to herself. Oddly she felt absolutely no need to blush at the idea, it was a Patronus memory if ever she'd had one, both filthy and oddly satisfying. As Ginevra nibbled lightly on a cold piece of chicken she looked her friend over and concluded the woman didn't seem to be doing too well herself, thoughtfully inquiring, "How have you been holing up Hermione? I know you and my brother were pretty close."

Hermione's face dropped a little but she was clearly surprised to hear such a question from the younger girl. "Not so great actually, I-, you, I should thank you for what you said yesterday though, it was completely true and I should not have yelled at you."

"It's okay, I think I know how you feel."

"It was the second time Ron did that you know, did he ever tell you about what happened in our first year?"

After she took a long moment's pause, Ginevra thought the question over seriously, "Tom was possessing that year's Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and Ron said you guys helped Harry prevent the theft of a Philosopher's Stone. I don't think that is what you mean though is it Hermione?"

As she spoke the muggleborn girl smiled for the first time since Harry left with Dumbledore last night, "Not quite what I meant no…" Hermione went on to explain all about Ron's intelligence and cunning when he battled against Professor McGonagall's transfigured chess set, and how he decided to sacrifice himself so his friends could go on without him.

As Ginevra finished the meal Hermione was well on her way through a story where her prat of a brother had marched right into the middle of an Acromantula nest, on nothing but the bare hopes of finding out how to get his friend un-petrified from her Basilisk. That one was especially surprising to the redhead as her whole family _knew_ Ron had such ridiculously severe arachnophobia, 'damn twins and their idiotic pranks.'

She found herself quite drawn in hearing these stories first hand for a change, some of them she'd heard before of course, but some others like the chess match, she was quite as ignorant as any _off the shelf_ Hogwarts student.

Taking the time to go through these things went a long way toward helping the older girl deal with her own grief as well. As a direct result of her spending the afternoon doing this, Hermione was able to truly deal with the situation once the boy's funeral was over. Otherwise she would have gotten both herself and her closest friend killed before the rest of her schoolmates had even arrived at next term's Sorting Ceremony, a distracted mind at just the wrong moment, and a touch too much recklessness causing disaster.

Ginevra took a deep breath and steeled herself after a long time sat in contemplation.

"You should go make certain Harry is okay, he'll need to talk to you even if he doesn't admit it aloud." At a second startled look from the seventeen year old, Ginevra answered the question which was obviously on Hermione's mind, "He needs his friend, not some girl he can stick his tongue into. Go, and make sure he's not blaming himself. More than he normally does anyway."

As the brunette walked off Ginevra sat alone and thought to herself that saying _that_ out loud had been far more painful than she would like to admit. Nonetheless it was the right thing to do, so the woman with blood red hair made her way back to the room on the seventh floor, and solitude.

','

Sat on a stone outcropping overlooking the lake in the late afternoon sunlight Harry Potter's mind was a blur, and not in a good way. A thousand different thoughts and feelings had been whirring in every direction, and dominating it all the intense weight of what he, and Hermione if she was still coming with him, were going to have to do to end this war.

His job seemed impossible on the face of it, with Fawkes' lamentation of his fallen master underscoring the sadness and loss of such a great man leaving the world. And now Harry was faced with completing a task of such importance and such _scope_ without the aid of his mentor, nor the help of the first friend he'd had who was both his age and his species.

'We're down to two, and the school year hasn't even ended yet. If I believed in Omens I'd say that would probably be a bad one.' Harry knew it was selfish to think of his friend's death in such a way, but the amount of sadness a person could feel at one time was limited. He may have an emotional range to cover it but for the fury when Snivellus Snape crossed his mind, a nigh all consuming rage which took up more than a small amount of the dark haired boy's concentration.

"Have you seen a toad, a boy named Neville has lost one?" his closest friend asked, unceremoniously dropping down next to him with a flop.

He smiled a little, looking over at her strong yet feminine face. "No sorry, do you know you have dirt on your nose?" The brunette got a similar smile but any humour dropped away swiftly and the two returned to silence. Hermione was about to speak again and he interrupted, "I slept with Ginny last night… I-, I shouldn't have done that."

Hermione's eyes widened at the unexpected statement, but she took it in thoughtfully, pausing for a few heartbeats before replying. "She seemed different today."

"Different how?"

"I'm not sure, she sent me out here to talk to you, that's not the kind of thing I would have expected from her. You know, I would have said the big supportive girlfriend angle was right down her alley."

After a while he threw out the one thing he'd been trying _not_ to think about all afternoon, "I should break up with her."

"WHAT?" Hermione shouted, incensed, "You have sex with her and immediately want to break up with her. I can't believe you Harry!"

Waving his hands in protest Harry scrambled, managing to get out, "That's not what I mean. It's just, we're going off on our mission as soon as I finish visiting the Dursley's one last time, and I'm going to be leaving her behind. We can't take her with us, and it's too dangerous on her if everyone knows she's my girlfriend." Mollified somewhat by his reasoning Hermione calmed down slightly. "That is if you are still coming Hermione?"

'I can't believe how hopeful and desperate I sound,' he despairingly noted after he said it, 'I _should_ be trying to convince her to let me go on alone.'

Hermione looked him over with an unreadable expression for the longest time, Harry refusing to let himself look away. After a moment she wearily answered his guileless plea, "Yes Harry I am still coming with you. I suggest you think about the Ginny situation over the summer though, you're coming to the Burrow for Bill and Fleur's wedding before we leave, so you can break up or not break up with her then." A long time after his assent was spent in contemplation, and finally his friend dragged him to his feet. "Come on, I'll bet anything you've not eaten since yesterday."

"Okay," the teenager agreed. "Thanks for coming out her Hermione."

She just nodded. There would be time for smiling later.

','

Dropping exhausted into a tattered Victorian style chair Ginevra exhaled a long breath. She was in her new room of choice at Hogwarts School, the cathedral sized one with the mountains of rubbish burying an occasional treasure. It had been barely a week since the battle, her magic was still in turmoil, and it was still weak from overuse. Nevertheless she _was_ capable of some spells so long as she didn't push herself too hard. The second day following the fight was enough to dissuade her from trying _that_ again, losing consciousness on the hard stone floor of this very room until three o'clock in the morning was not a pleasant experience, nor one she'd enjoy repeating.

'Though how I used the rest of that night may have made up for it,' she thought wryly.

Ginevra had been spending her days with Harry, Hermione, Luna, and Neville once the latter got out of the Hospital Wing. The small group didn't really talk that much about things which were important. This was mostly by unvoiced consensus as it was clear to everyone that things were going to get worse, and they all just wanted to enjoy what calm there was to be had, before the storms came as it were.

She'd been spending her nights in the boy's dormitory even though she knew Harry was feeling quite a bit of guilt once the morning rolled around. 'Honestly it's not as Harry is being all that circumspect in his plans to leave,' the redhead thought, dismissive in her attitude.

The rest of her time was spent in solitude poring over her new favourite book, the Half Blood Prince character was clearly a bit dodgy, yet some of the annotations were fascinating to the young woman.

Other than that she'd been working on her plan. Well, calling it a _plan_ would be a tad pretentious, a vague idea with some tendrils of possibility in the near future. A sort-of plan was close enough for now though, she would have most of the summer to work on an actual plan.

Ginevra had been creating her very own pile of junk in the room, working through the stuff she thought might be salvageable and getting it all in one place. She'd collected half a dozen swords, three axes, loads of reparable furniture, various other broken amulets, jewellery and the like. She'd found something made from what she believed was solid gold and had a founder's insignia of a Ravenclaw Raven on it. Though it was a shame the thing looked to have been scorched into worthlessness during her hazily remembered fight in the hidden room.

It hadn't been easy but Ginevra _had_ managed to make contact with Sirius' friend from the Order of the Phoenix, Mundungus Fletcher. Not many teenage girls hung out at the Hog's Head, but sitting at the bar sipping a heavy shot of Ogden's Old with a 'fuck you' scowl on one's face will get you a measure of peace and quiet. She was there more than three hours pondering on the overcapacity town of Hogsmeade before the opportunity presented itself, 'and really, when you are paying attention, all it takes is time.' So now she had an agreement with the old criminal for the day of the Headmaster's funeral, another victory for her not quite plan.

That was why she was in the Room of Requirement, fighting back a magical exhaustion headache, and reading the Prince's book until she felt recovered enough to continue. That damned axe took the longest, as it was resistant to the three cleaning charms she knew, so getting all the blood off and sharpening the thing took a full ninety bloody minutes. On detailed inspection she doubted whatever was killed with the blade had been human, but that hardly mattered when you're chipping away at the red-brown stain with measured bludgeoning hexes for what your headache was telling you was an eternity.

Closing the textbook Ginevra staggered back to her feet, flicking off her newly researched spell, she aimed at some heavy pieces of broken wood, the woman precisely intoning three syllables, _'Re-pex-is.'_ Her limited magic drained painfully but when the spell completed, the expensive appearing furniture looked closer to the way it presumably once had.

'Urg, okay what's next?'

','

"Ah, William Arthur Weasley how nice of you to join the two of us this evening," why she'd decided to go for grandiose tones when talking to her brother, Ginevra wouldn't have been able to guess, her mind's capricious whims just as much a mystery to her as any other. "Did you know that your second daughter is to be named Dominique after your beautiful fiancé's maternal aunt? Dominique Ginevra Weasley has such a commanding air to it, do you not think?"

A comedic look perfectly described as 'deer in the headlights' graced the features of the eldest Weasley brother, as his sister and future wife shared identical predatory smiles. Ginevra found this connection a strange one, as recently she'd been calling this French woman _Phlegm_ in hopes that putting her down would make herself look good. On reminiscing about her childish behaviour Ginevra was amused how it just made _her_ look pathetic, and outlined the former champion's attributes rather than detracting from them.

The two women separated requiring Bill to sit in the only seat available, directly between the females, who then spent the entire meal torturing the poor outgunned Curse Breaker.

"Really brother, you should take a second helping. I have no desire to be the one responsible for your running short on energy some time later tonight." There really wasn't much innocence in the sentiment bar the tone, but Bill couldn't retaliate without exposing himself to the Veela girl.

Smiling in thought as she took up the challenge Fleur added, "Oui, the fish especially is good, and has all the right kinds of calories."

It was nice to get away from the morbid atmosphere for a while and engage in some levity with a woman she would tentatively describe as a friend. 'Bill has always had good taste, and the impression Fleur gives off when I am actually giving her a chance is quite positive. Why in heavens name I've ever listened to my mother I will never know.'

As the meal went on Bill became quieter and quieter with the constant routings the two women were visiting upon him. He would be able to hold his own, and even get in a few hits if it was one or the other, but together he had been quite thoroughly dealt with, and was even _tinged red with embarrassment_. 'Oh my gods, I never even thought Bill _could_ blush at all!'

The soon to be married couple left, presumably about to be engaging in a very sweaty experience, if Ginevra was correctly interpreting the signs. This left Ginevra alone for a while once more, dwelling on less pleasant thoughts, until a well recognised voice brought her back to the present…

"-found something out this morning, in the library." She spoke the words in the melodic, lecturing tone Hermione always adopted whenever she'd managed to spend too much time in the Library. Harry, who was about to sit to her left gave a meaningful took in the direction of the babbling woman. Hermione saw this look, finishing her sentiment, "N-, no, not that." The muggleborn seemed nervous that Ginevra was going to enquire, but when she simply reached for a drink Hermione went on, "It's about, erm, Snape."

A dark look crossed the jade eyed man's face, as it always did at mention of the former Professor's name, "What about him?"

"Well, it's just that I was sort of right about the Half Blood Prince business," the brunette said tentatively, snapping Ginevra's attention fully on their conversation.

Bitterly he responded, "Do you have to rub it in, Hermione? How do you think I feel about that now?"

"No, no. Harry, I didn't mean it like that," she said hastily casting a familiar privacy charm, looking around to check that they were not being overheard. "It's just that I was right about Eileen Prince once owning the book. You see, she was Snape's _mother_. I found a tiny announcement about Eileen Prince marrying a man called Tobias Snape."

"The Half Blood Prince is Snape?" Ginevra roared once she heard confirmation from that last statement.

A deafening quiet answered this explosion. "Why does that matter to you Gin?"

As she took in both her companions Ginevra said, "Watch, _'Muffliato'"_ and spread the privacy charm around the group a second time.

"You could have learned that from me the night of the Battle," the bushy haired girl remarked pedantically.

"Fine," casting about Ginevra scoped a third year Ravenclaw she didn't even know, without hesitation she mentally commanded, _'Levicorpus.'_

"Eep," the boy squeaked as he was unceremoniously yanked into the air, _'Libracorpus'_ and he fell to the floor with a crash. Unabashedly turning back to her shocked friends the redhead stated, "See?"

"See? Yes I saw, but what do you mean?" shaking her head Ginevra rummaged about in her satchel, eventually pulling out a clean covered book with tatty pages, cramped annotations in the hand of the Half Blood Prince.

Laying the thing down on the table she went on, "I found it in the Room of Requirement when I was under the influence of the _Felix Felicis_."

"I hid it there about two months ago after I hit Malfoy with that Dark Slicing Curse," Harry said, chuffed a laugh. "Although at the time I didn't know the purpose of that spell by the way."

"There is some good stuff in here, even if it was written by Snape of all people."

Harry was about to comment when his eyes bulged and he choked silently. "There was this crown thing I used to mark the book's location wasn't there?"

Frowning in thought she landed on what he was getting at, "Yeah, it had a Ravenclaw Raven on it, why?" The two shared one of their 'Golden Trio' looks and Ginevra rolled her eyes. Together they both sprang to their feel as she commented, "It was destroyed in a fight with Death Eaters, only half the thing is left and the rest is scorched, so there is no point in going after it. May I ask _why_ this is important?"

Another shared glance, a whole world of silent communication passes between them in the way of long time friends, and she understood.

"I guess not."

','

In Ginevra's opinion only one good thing came from the morning of Dumbledore's funeral, as most of it was bad. There was a chorus of merpeople, centaurs, and all the distinguished guests one would expect to see at an event which marked the passing of such a notable figure. The desire to harm a number of the attendants was strong in Harry, and she would be beside him if he chose to start casting at Deloris Umbridge or Rita Skeeter, a brawl at a funeral might make for an interesting experience.

The first, toadface, caused the scars on the back of Harry's hand advising not to tell lies, and for that alone there would be a reckoning. The second for no personal reason, because Ms. Skeeter had never written anything bad about her, but Ginevra would be there beside Harry regardless, should he decide on that course of action.

Clutching that locket he had become so attached to since the night of the old man's death, Harry did eventually break down, and she'd been there for him, a calm presence the girl hoped would be appreciated. There were no tears of her own as it did not seem fitting, her brother's memorial service scheduled a few days ago gave Ginevra ample time to grieve for what she had lost. On this day there was sadness but no tears, Harry needed her and so she did what she could, knowing now that she would do the same always.

The two eventually tried to make their way to Hogsmeade and the Express, leaning heavily on one another as the limping Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour blocked their path, an imposing figure with steel in his gaze. Even though the man was a former Auror, and one who carried a lot of political weight, the redhead would have to admit she had not immediately rejected the idea of attempting a Blasting Hex to the face. The man was clearly trying to catch Harry in a weak moment, and that was something she would not stand for.

Of course it was completely unnecessary, the dark haired boy managed to calmly infuriate the Minister without trying, or even raising his voice. She remembered thinking, 'well what's one more adversary when we're dealing with this many problems already,' as they'd turned their backs on him, striding away leaving the shaggy haired politician in their dust.

On the path toward the easily recognizable Hogwarts train, Hermione and Luna followed behind, helping steady a still injured Neville Longbottom. It was then she'd heard from Harry the one good thing which brought a smile to both of their faces, something which, for whatever reason, hadn't come out when telling the story of what had happened on the night of the Death Eater attack.

Snape, who Ginevra was beginning to think Harry hated more than Tom, did _not_ get out of that battle scot free. As Dumbledore's murderer escorted the dismal excuse of a human being that was the Scion of Malfoy from Hogwarts grounds, Snape had a bit of a run in with a …displeased was a good word, a _displeased _Harry Potter. From the sounds of things it was going quite well for the former Potions Professor, effortlessly slapping away Harry's spells, taunting him and so forth. When a Hippogriff, the same one which used to live in the mistress' room at Grimmauld Place, came to Harry's aid; _Sectumsempra _ and the greasy man found himself short two fingers on his left hand.

It was a start, Harry was going to win this war, piece by piece if needs be.

Of that Ginevra was certain.

','

"Of course I fucking don't!" Ginevra exploded at the rumpled man's ridiculous question, "I trust you exactly as far as I could spit a gob full of horse semen."

"Whey Ginny girl, I don' kno' where you get such language. An' as you say, I was great pals with Sirius. I wouldn' try an' do anythin' to ya that were dishonest."

Shaking her head at the thief the crimson haired woman just said, "Stay here, give me the damn sack and I'll be back in half an hour." It was an order which the man eventually obeyed, handing the magically reinforced and expanded sack to the teenage girl, sour look on his face. She took off to a secret passageway under Honeydukes, learned in fourth year from her trickster brother Fred.

Nearly a full hour passed before she returned to the private room in the Hog's Head. Apparently Fletcher had gotten back in the good graces of the elderly barkeep because last she'd heard he was banned. Ginevra threw down the suspiciously light sack stating, "I've appraised most of it, so don't try to pull a fast one on me Mundungus."

Frowning because he'd been sure a pretty little girl like her would have been an easy mark, the man went to work, clearly a professional level of competence in his attitude and mannerisms. It was a sight which few would've expected from the scruffy, foul smelling man.

After closely inspecting each item taken from the Room of Hidden Things for three hours, Gin having long since gone back to her Potions book while keeping one eye on the thief, Fletcher declared, "Fifteen Galleons for the lot."

Barking a laugh as she tore her eyes from the pages, countering, "Quite amusing Mundungus; Ninety, half up front and that's only because I like you."

"That Windsor was hardly worth carting here, and you gotta be kidding me half up front; twenty and al give ya four now."

"That's an antique you idiot, a classic early-nineteenth century I checked, probably one of the most valuable things here."

They bartered back and forth for the longest time, with Ginevra beginning guess Dung had spotted something she'd missed but would never be able to figure out what. "Fine. Forty-four with fourteen now, but I want the sack too."

"Whud you wan' the sack for?" as she was clearly not going to answer he just said, "Alrigh', you'd get a guy to sell 'is own Grandmother for under the odds you would."

Ginevra for some reason took this as an honest compliment, and beamed with pleasure she requesting, "Will you side-along me to Kings Cross Mundungus? I need to pretend I have been on the train the whole time."

At four o'clock in the evening, not long before the Express was due to arrive, Ginevra found herself on the muggle side of King's Cross station, lounging arrogantly against one of the platforms, waiting for a very specific group of people to make an appearance. Following a short length of time they did; pudgy, pudgier, and horse-face. The young woman generously gave the family a few moments to find somewhere to stand before leaping to her feet, robes swirling at the effort she advanced on the Dursley family.

Slashing a shallow gash across the back of the fat man's knuckles, Ginevra eventually placed the razor sharp cooking utensil edge on to the fat man's neck, "Do I have your attention Mr. Dursley?" Ginevra whispered mere inches from his ear, barely audible tones sinister.

At a tiny nod from the man she continued, "I am not particularly interested in being nice about this, foolish muggle. Pretending for instance like this is a request," she paused. "Stay out of your nephew's way, he is far more important to me and my kind than you will ever hope to understand, and will be out of your home by the day following the anniversary of his birth. Stay away, leave him to his own devises, do this or I will find you and cut your head from your shoulders."

There was a fearful silence but no words.

"Do you understand?"

It wasn't much, but she hoped Harry would appreciate the gesture.

','


	4. Homecoming

','

Of Chaos and Flame  
by Lens of Sanity

','

Chapter Three: Homecoming

','

Hermione Jean Granger stepped off the Knight Bus in a quiet suburban neighbourhood on the outskirts of Oxford, suppressing an irritated scowl as she did each and every time at this point in the year. The conductor rambled something which she summarily ignored and the ridiculous magical means of transportation flew off, disappearing around a corner, out of her line of sight. With hair tied back simply to keep it out of her still slightly grief stricken eyes she sighed, double checked the shrunken trunk was still safely tucked in her pants pocket, and reluctantly walked up the path to her parents' house.

The building was unsurprisingly empty.

'Ah, home once again,' Hermione thought with bleak faux cheer, taking a small breath of an artificially pine scented air, dropping down on the expensively tasteful settee, in the expensively tasteful front room, across from the expensively tasteful television set. In short, the home her parents' had painstakingly purchased over the years working as professionals, building a life as the perfect image of successful, middle class family.

'Christ but I hate this place.'

Picking up the remote control she flicked across a few of the channels not really caring what was on, searching instead for some background noise to distract her while she lost herself in thought. An episode of that new detective show _Jonathan Creek_ was on BBC One and Hermione simply stretched out for a while, staring blankly at the images.

Thoughts of her best friend dying were still at the forefront of her mind, and a weight pressing across her chest at the realisation that it really _was_ down to Harry and her to fight this war, that Headmaster Dumbledore had left it to them alone to find and destroy these objects which were keeping You-Know-Who alive and out murdering people.

Hermione had been ignoring these thoughts while finishing out the year at Hogwarts, but alone for the first time, back in the muggle world and her parents house, they crashed home with a sharpness not dulled in the slightest by the passage of time.

Harry and she were, for all intents and purposes, on their own.

'I'm only seventeen years old!' she screamed her lungs out silently, face impassive, eyes just a touch out of focus.

Her muggle parents arrived around an hour later, well dressed in expensively tasteful work clothes, carrying identical expensively tasteful briefcases. Hermione welcomed them with a fake smile and they asked how school had been, enquiring how well she thought she'd done in her exams.

Hermione told them everything was fine, and that her teachers were all _'ever so impressed'_ with all the hard work she'd put in over the course of the year.

They went for a late lunch at an expensively tasteful restaurant that evening, as they always did on the first day of the summer, and Hermione told them all about the things she had been taught over the year. Her parents showed interest as all good parents were supposed to do, and Hermione pretended the interest was anything but feigned in an attempt to play up the image of a perfect, well to do, and more importantly _successful_ family.

Hermione didn't strangle anyone.

She never did.

','

'Ah, Privet Drive once again,' Harry thought as he took in the smell of old musty air in his tiny room, the look of bedding bare even of pillowcases, and the soft sounds of …nothing, the unnatural stillness of a house disinfected into lifelessness. In short a very familiar location, the hated place he had grown up as a child.

"How in the name of Merlin did I grow up here without becoming a dark wizard?" he asked the Ether, actually half hoping his question would be answered. He shook his head as he finished the thought, "Honestly, baby Voldemort lived in better conditions than these as a child."

The perverse nature of Harry's life was not lost on him, he was standing in a tiny room inside a moderately sized house situated in a sleepy suburban hell hole, and he was unable to do magic for the next four weeks because he was still under the age of seventeen. For most people his age this wouldn't have been all that bad, just under a month and he'd be an adult, free to leave and do… whatever they wanted to really, Harry had never once thought that far ahead in all of his life.

No Harry had a job to do, not one which was that hard really when you came right down to it; _'Destroy the immortality of the most powerful Dark Lord in modern times, then kill him. Somehow.'_ That last weighed down heavily on the boy whenever he thought on it; _somehow_. He had not the foggiest idea of _how_ he was going to go about it, and with his mentor recently called to play out his _'next great adventure,'_ Harry found himself more than a little overwhelmed by the prospect.

The removal of immortality part was not all that bad, as he at least had a few places to start, bare fragments of hard fought knowledge to use as a guide. He'd been told over the course of the year about Horcruxes, and armed with enough information about his foe to make some educated guesses as to their locations, 'and I have Hermione still, she'll be able to come up with all sorts of ideas. She's brilliant like that,' he thought, hoping for a smile which never quite came.

It was the seemingly inevitable encounter with the final piece of Voldemort's soul, the near insignificant sliver left walking around in its nose-less body, causing chaos and ending life. It was destroying _that_ part which was weighing most heavily on Harry. "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord," he spoke aloud into the artificial quiet.

It was similar to that movie Dudley had been watching over and over again during the summer before his third year. There was this time travelling robotic killing machine, and it was trying to take out this twelve year old kid, because the twelve year old would one day grow up to be _'the last best hope of humankind.'_

If you wanted Harry's opinion as to what it would feel like to be _that_ character he'd be able to give a pretty detailed answer. Only for Harry it was _worse_, because the world didn't need saving at some indistinct time long in the future, after much training and preparation. No, when you were Harry James Potter you have to go save everybody _now_. With hardly any help, and no idea as to what the bloody hell you were supposed to do.

A traitorous thought lanced its way through the boy's mind as he took a seat on the stained bedding, 'I wish Gin was here.'

Wishing ones girlfriend was there wouldn't under normal circumstances be a bad thing, however Harry knew deep in his bones that he had been using the pretty redhead to avoid all of his problems. When he lost himself in blissful oblivion it was almost like the trials ahead of him were unimportant, somebody else's problem, another life entirely. And when it was over, everytime, he felt as though he'd taken something precious from the girl.

So he pushed his attention to more important things, a set of books entitled _'Practical Defensive Magic and its Use Against the Dark Arts,'_ given to him for Christmas during his fifth year by Remus Lupin and his fallen godfather Sirius Black. Although he was up to the eighth and penultimate volume he'd stopped reading them after Sirius died, which now seemed to have been a grave mistake, time no longer feeling a limitless commodity.

The books had superb, moving colour illustrations of all the counterjinxes and hexes described, and though he was unable to actively practice the magic itself, Harry resolved to become as ready as possible while in the solitude of his childhood home. For whatever reason in occurred to the raven haired sixteen year old that, had his friend not recently lost his life, this war would not have felt so close as it did, and so Harry would have doubtlessly done far less productive things this his month alone.

He lay back on the bed, evening sunshine streaming through the small window, and lifted Volume one.

Start from the beginning and keep going until you reach the end; then stop.

Simple.

','

Ginevra had managed to sidestep pretty much all of the questions regarding her whereabouts on the Hogwarts Express by virtue of telling one group of friends she was with the other, and now she was finally back in her family home for the first time since Yule.

On meeting up with everyone on the magical side of King's Cross she had unceremoniously dragged Harry into a secluded corner for a "chaste" goodbye, one he would hopefully remember fondly. The woman had then disengaged and, after a few more words of farewell, parted with the rest of her family to the communal floo connection, situated on the far side of the barrier in and out of Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

'Ah, the Burrow once again,' she thought as she took in the smell of the summer air, the look of the untidy garden, and the soft sounds of garden gnomes as they uttered swear words the twins had taught them so long ago. In short a very familiar location, the treasured place she had grown up as a child.

Her mother began to prepare a hasty meal which Ginevra was looking forward to, having eaten little that day, the exception being what passed for food at the Hog's Head. Sprawling out on the couch she looked over to her eldest brother, "Why were you and Fleur spending so much time in Hogwarts at the end of the term Bill?"

A grim smile passed over him as he answered, "With Dumbledore gone we were reorganising the Order, and with mum and Ron-, well it seemed like the best thing to do to help keep an eye on things."

To the sounds of cooking she idly mused to herself, 'Mum really didn't take losing one of her children very well.' A long contemplative quiet descended on the two as they became lost in their own thoughts, and after a while she blurted a seemingly random question, "How does the Ministry track underage magic, do you know?"

"What are you thinking Gin?" Bill asked, suspicious tone thickly evident.

"Just curious, do you know or not?"

"Yeah, if you buy a new wand from Diagon Alley it has a tracker on it to help them trace wand-signature, but if you're in a high magical area like Platform Nine and Three Quarters it'll be lost in all the ambient energy."

Grinning the girl asked, "Okay but I'm using Gramma Weasley's old wand so there will be no tracker on it right?"

"True but you still can't do underage magic with it because you still have the Trace on you. Just like everyone else who goes to Hogwarts, they put it on you during the first day of class. If you were home schooled the Ministry adds the Trace when they make you register." This fact deflated the younger girl's enthusiasm a bit.

"So there is no way past it? That can't be right. I _know_ some people in school improve loads over the summer, so there must be something. Otherwise how could they practice?"

"To be honest I don't really know how the Trace actually works, but if I had to guess I'd say that it just makes it easier for them to pin you down in muggle areas. It wouldn't be something complex enough to track what spells you're using, that would be far too complicated and way too easy for regular people to Curse Break their way through it." His eyes lit up a little as he thought about his passion and Ginevra rolled her eyes at him, all the while thinking through what she was being told, and more importantly how the knowledge could help.

"So you're saying you _could_ probably lift the Trace from me, but there is no need because if I practice around, say a magical family's home for instance, _and_ I stick to using my Grandmother's wand, the Ministry won't be able to catch me."

"Pretty much yeah, what are you thinking lil'spitfire?" he said chuckling, and as their mother called them in for an early meal, the blue eyed woman got to her feet, telling Bill where she'd been going with her line of questioning,

"I think it's about time you teach me some good Curse Breaker ways to blow shit up."

','

'Fuck me with a spiked club would you look at this place,' Ginevra thought, her gaze shifting about her first floor bedroom. With new eyes it was like she'd never seen the inside of it before, a small space really, being the only girl among a swarm of brothers meant she didn't have to share, but gods in heaven was everything bright. "And _pink_!" she stated aloud shuddering.

A poster of the Wizarding band the Weird Sisters was one thing, Donaghan Temlett on bass was pretty talented and if what her dorm mate had told her was true, the man played for a muggle band called 'Pulp' of all things.

At least it wasn't pink.

The captain of the all witch Quidditch team the Holyhead Harpies, Gwenog Jones was taking up the whole of the north wall also, and she was actually looking fairly hot in it so the photograph must have been taken before Jones took that Bludger in the face last season. But the rest was pink, very pink. And the Unicorn stencils.

"No-one can ever be allowed to see this room."

Green went well with red hair so she set about the room with her wand changing everything pink into a nice neutral green, the shade of spring grass or dark moss. 'What was I thinking, pink? Everyone knows pink is hideous for redheads, at least my hair is actually red and not ginger like the twins, that would be even more unforgivable.'

The memorable feeling of churning chaos assaulted her senses as she went about channelling magic, thinking on the why of this increasingly familiar sensation had brought nothing but questions and no answers. All she knew was that ever since she'd used the Lucky Potion and her eyes had changed colour, she'd had the feeling of swimming in the sea when there was a large storm happening. The sensation was less personally violent than that, but as far as describing a sensation went the metaphor was not too bad.

It wasn't long before the old pull of magical exhaustion started digging at her and she decided to stop, before her body stopped her.

'Perhaps I will be able to answer some of my questions once I recover more magically. At least the room is looking better than it had.' Not even bothering to change Ginevra crashed onto her childhood bed and was instantly embraced by the comforting arms of Morpheus.

She was the only one at the Burrow who was smiling as she slept that night.

','

Feeling her magic drain painfully Hermione kept focus as best she could, clear mental image, with intent focused in all the complex ways described in the textbooks. The near invisible beam of light connected her wand to the object she was enchanting, and she let out a little sob of pain as more magic than she was comfortable in channelling was dragged from somewhere behind her ribcage.

When it was over her vision swam a bit, then she keeled over and blacked out.

Late the next morning Hermione woke and found herself still prone on the floor, spine aching in a way which was probably not normal for a supposedly spry teenager. She hadn't expected anyone to come check on her, but then again she hadn't expected that enchantment to have been as difficult as it was. Nevertheless the old irritable disappointment still reared its ugly head after she realised nobody in this light forsaken hellhole cared enough about her to check she'd been _crumpled on the floor in a clearly painful position_!

Following a brief stretch of limbs and a little sub-audible grumbling, Hermione got to her feet and picked the small beaded bag she'd purchased the first day of summer, thinking it looked kind of stylish, even though it had come from a second hand store. The thing was purple and as far as she knew unique, rather than the kind of off the shelf accessories most people bought.

Hermione tapped out a few detecting charms before opening it, discovering that as far as she could tell it had worked. Opening the little bag she saw how much deeper it was on the inside, easily capable of stuffing her hand right up to the shoulder.

"Now all I have to do is figure out how to make it travel through time and I've got my own Tardis."

Hermione blinked and giggled after a moment, unable to believe she'd said such a ridiculous thing out loud. Regardless, enchanting on that magnitude would have been an ambitious project for a gifted N.E.W.T. student, so she decided that the accomplishment was something to be proud of, and that nothing was going to ruin this good feeling today.

This declaration went uncontested for quite a while. Hermione spent most of her day generally relaxing around the house, taking things easy. She read up on a few of the more interesting theories in the current books she'd been working through; warding and enchantments mostly as she'd decided to put off any heavy work or future planning until later in the summer, if not until she and Harry began their unavoidable mission.

So she'd been having what was probably the best day of her summer so far, when she found herself returning from the grocery store to be confronted by none other than Sally Pews.

Interesting.

This was the girl from Primary school who'd made the early years of her life so… distinctive. The girl who had been seen in that strange mirror she'd run across the day after her twelfth birthday, crying and debasing herself at Hermione's feet. The much anticipated day her magic would be used to punish her for all the bullying which had been visited on her by this girl's own hands.

Headmaster Dumbledore had asked what she'd seen, and Hermione had lied to the man quite blatantly at the time, and lied again a term later when Harry told her of his experience with the artefact.

Nevertheless this was an opportunity she could not allow to let slip through her fingers. It was even better that Ms. Pews was with her two little enforcers and what Hermione would tentatively presume to be her boyfriend. He was a tall one, maybe a rugby player from the build.

"Well if it isn't Beaverface Granger?" Sally said in her distinctive tone, funny that Hermione could recognise the enunciation of each word as though it hadn't been close to a decade since she'd heard it last. This was going to be just what she needed to round off the perfect summer's day.

"Good to know you've come up with no new insults Sally my friend," Hermione said with a brilliant, open smile, lashing out a Vacillation Hex with a twitch of her wand. Turning to the only man in the small group she batted her eyelashes asking, "My you look almost good enough to eat, do you have a name to go with those shoulders?"

"David-," the man managed as far as his first name in a surprisingly deep voice, before being cut off by having a witch's tongue shoved down his throat. It didn't take long before Hermione's hand snaked its way down the front of his trousers either, a sight which caused that total bitch Sally Pews to throw off the effects of her minor confusion jinx.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing with my boyfriend you whore!" she screeched, her pretty face going blotchy with rage.

"All good things must end," Hermione answered with a quiet sigh, disengaging slowly and taking one final little peck.

The stupid muggle's full armed slap sailed over Hermione's hastily ducked head and, grabbing onto the back of old Sally's bright pink blouse, drove the full might of her knee into the girl's stomach, dropping her to the pavement in a savage blow.

"Well it was nice seeing you all again," Hermione said breezily, "especially you Mr. David." She looked the man up and down quite openly, then down to the gasping muggle at her feet. Sally Pews was in the precise position at her feet as she had been all those years ago in the mirror.

Hermione smiled brilliantly to herself and the world in general.

Today was turning out to be a very good day indeed.

','

Ginevra woke not long before four in the morning, surprisingly well rested from her early night, immediately getting on with dressing. Following a well travelled path down the single flight of stairs, she was careful not to step on any squeaky floorboards as she made it out the front door of the sleeping Burrow without making a sound. There was a long trek down the dirt path, out from under her family wards, before she could lift her wand and incant two lone syllables,_"Lumos"_ and after a loud bang she was greeted with what was clearly scripted spiel.

"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Mike Monkfish, and I will be your conductor this evening." Shaking her head Ginevra handed over a ruinous _eleven _Sickles which the gormless man extorted from her, and she found herself hurtling toward King's Cross.

Finally letting her off about thirty minutes later Ginevra set off at a brisk jog toward her destination, although she was forced to _Confund_ two idiotic muggle law enforcers who thought someone running in the dead of night had to be a criminal, 'fools.'

Having floo travelled all but a handful of the times she'd come here, there was the only path she knew to the building she sought. As she had once walked this way at the beginning of her fourth year, Ginevra found herself a little sweaty from exertion as she finally closed on Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.

A long, shrill, and bellowing conversation over dinner the previous evening between her mother and father had given her the idea to come here. Her mother, channelling a classic Prewett temper, had been arguing for relocation under the wards and protections of this Ancient and Noble family's home. While the Order of the Phoenix had put many jinxes specifically defending against Severus Snape, they had been unable to locate the Fidelius Anchor, and so Professor Flitwick had told the Order that he was unable to place the Charm on a building which was already covered by one. Not to mention that he did not have the permission to do so from the building's rightful owner, which was apparently a requisite of the Charm's magic.

The upshot being that House Black either was, or was not, one of the most secure locations in Great Britain for anyone opposing Tom and his Death Eaters. The Order of the Phoenix predictably and sensibly, abandoned the property the morning after Albus Dumbledore had died.

As Ginevra closed the door behind them, the old-fashioned gas lamps sprang into life, casting flickering light along the length of the hallway. It looked pretty much the same as she remembered. It was still the eerie and cobweb filled, with house-elf heads on the wall throwing odd shadows up the staircase. Long dark curtains concealed the portrait of Sirius' mother, and the cursed Troll's leg umbrella stand was lying on its side as if Tonks had just knocked it over again.

"Severus Snape?" the disembodied voice of Professor Moody rang out into the quiet, signalling the first of the Order's protections.

"Does Severus Snape have a body this hot?" she demanded belligerently, and something whooshed over her like cold air. Her talented tongue curled backward on itself, making it impossible to speak, but before she had time to feel inside her mouth her tongue had unravelled, and Ginevra came to the conclusion that this would probably prevent any Secret Keeper from revealing the Secret. 'Clever.'

Eventually Ginevra landed on the fact that she was meant to be informing the ghostly Headmaster that she had not in fact killed him, and a suitably disturbed redhead then made her way to the Black Library, this night's destination. By the time she arrived the woman checked with a _'Tempus'_ spell and found it to be a little under ten minutes to five in the morning, meaning she had around an hour before she would be forced to call the Knight Bus back to Devon and her family home.

"Best get to it then Ginevra, you need to improve or you will be useless to him."

Around forty minutes later rooting around for more magic of the type she sought out, Ginevra had collected a fair pile of interesting tomes, including _'The Magick in Bloode by Marius Carrow'_ which Ginevra had wanted to read ever since she heard about it doing research for a piece of History homework. Turning to leave her robes caught on a bookshelf, and with a tearing crack the stack gave way, tumbling dozens of books to the floor. As she extricated herself from splintered wood and scattered pages she noticed a false back behind the shelf she had for the most part ignored, and investigation found something very, very interesting.

"That might be just the thing I'm looking for."

','

It had been three weeks since returning to Privet Drive and the Dursley family had been unusually quiet for the most part. Even Dudley appeared to be taking a crack at helpfulness which Harry would have considered bizarre had he been thinking on it, distracted as he was. As Harry took a break from his studies he once again decided to read the memorial to Albus Dumbledore, an article which had surprised him in more ways than one. Mostly though Harry was shocked at the realisation that the old Headmaster had a life of his own outside of his awareness, and that Harry had hardly known the man at all.

The Elphias Doge character who wrote the article, seemed to Harry to be pandering to the old man though, and he would be disappointed at confirmation in the form of Rita Skeeter's sensationalist book when he read about it the following week, in precisely the same newspaper. He hadn't really been able to put his finger on _why_ the memorial article had shaken him so, taken in the abstract Harry knew Dumbledore must have had loads to tell him had he lived long enough, advice as to how he'd defeated _his_ Dark Lord in the forties for instance, would have been top of the Headmaster's priorities Harry was sure.

Still, Harry had put reflecting on the Horcrux collecting mission to the back burner. He'd been spending his days taking notes and coming up with ideas as to how he was going to become stronger. It hadn't taken more than a few hours that second day, after he'd spent the time to write down every spell he knew and everything he could perform with competence, for Harry to conclude that he was woefully unprepared.

Compared to the average Dumbledore's Army member from his fifth year illegal student organisation, Harry was considerably more able to defend himself. This was mostly thanks to Snape unfortunately; the gods damned Half Blood Prince had equipped him with the kind of spell knowledge which would make another Department of Mysteries Battle a far more deadly affair. And if it ever came to that, most of the blood spilled would be on the side of the Death Eaters.

It was so bloody obvious in retrospect. The Death Eaters had been under orders to use non-lethal magic, so they should have been trying to hurt them without worrying overmuch about themselves.

Having gotten all the way through _'Practical Defensive Magic'_ Harry had discovered a few things, one of which was the realisation that only the first three books covered things needed to pass N.E.W.T. Defence Against the Dark Arts. The first book being around O.W.L. standard and the second and third made for British seventh year level. As the Christmas present was a nine book series this meant that he had a resource which was far more helpful than he'd previously believed, and Harry was beginning to suspect the final two were on a Ministry restricted list.

Two of the more challenging pieces of magic he had found and resolved to learn were things he had seen employed with his own eyes. Used by Voldemort and Dumbledore during their clash at the end of fifth year. One was the highest level shield the texts outlined, which conjured a shining silver disc of magic out of thin air. He had seen Voldemort utilise it to deflect the force of Dumbledore's spellfire, with no visible damage to the shield bar an impact which caused a deep gong-like note to reverberate throughout the Ministry Atrium.

The incantation was _'Aegis Contego'_ and it had disturbingly complex wand motions which Harry had been practicing at agonising slowness with a mechanical pencil, his finger, and even a stick of celery taken from the healthy section of his Aunt Petunia's fridge.

The second he had recognised was a binding spell, sort of like _'Incarcerous'_ only several orders of magnitude more powerful and more difficult to cast. He had seen Dumbledore use it in an attempt to trap the Dark Lord during the same duel, and had incorrectly assumed the thing a pale green fire whip.

He drew back his pencil and waved it as though brandishing a whip, imagining a long thin flame flying from the tip and wrapping pale green around an opponent, he incanted _'Evinxi Necto.'_

Harry sighed as he stated to himself, "This would be so much easier if I could actually _try it_ with my wand."

With a small frown of concentration he went back to making tiny slashes and twists in the air with his pencil; the shield spell really was absurdly intricate.

','

"What is the meaning of this Hermione Jean Granger!" the shrill voice of her mother bellowed as soon as Hermione stepped into the house, four weeks into the summer holidays. Hiding a small smile the brunette closed the door with a soft click.

"What is the meaning of what mother dear?"

"This note!" her father spat, waving the thing in her face.

"Ah yes," Hermione said, tapping the index fingers of both her hands to her lips in what she was hoping conveyed a thoughtful expression. "That would be a lie I wrote to keep you here so we could all have a nice family discussion. No escaping to your ever so important social functions tonight, I have something important we need to talk about."

Her mother blinked, "a lie?"

"Yes," she sighed in exasperation, "I am not really dropping out of school because I've gotten myself pregnant. Nor am I a lesbian circus performer, are you both completely insane?"

"My little girl would not leave such messages!" the man of the house said, a little flustered but quick to reassert his supposed authority.

"Oh do be quiet," Hermione rolled her eyes, "we might as well do this somewhere comfortable."

She collected three brandy glasses and a bottle from the liquor cabinet, filling all three with a solid measure of 'Hennessy XO.' Downing hers in a single practiced motion, Hermione poured herself a second and handed the alcohol to her idiotic parents, before taking a seat in the living room.

After a moment in silence Hermione's father asked the question which he most wanted to confirm, "So you're really not a lesbian then?"

"Oh for the love of god!" she threw up her hands. "There is a war on," Hermione began, ignoring the stupid question, looking both in the eye to make sure they were listening, "and I am leaving tonight, right after this conversation is over, to fight and perhaps die in the process. There is the possibility, even likelihood, that you will never see me again after today."

Taking a drink and waiting for one or the other to break the silence, Hermione decided it really was a very good brandy; she'd have to remember to take some with her when she left.

"Are you-,"

"Yes!" Hermione cut her off, "I am deadly serious."

There was more quiet.

"You are too young to go to war."

"I'm an adult by wizarding law," she pointed out to her obviously disbelieving parents, "besides Harry is almost a year younger than I, and he's the one _leading it_."

"Young lady, if you are acting out and playing at being childish, I will have none of it," the older woman stated simply, "we raised you better than this."

"You didn't raise me at all you stupid bastards," Hermione snarled. "There should be a number of laws preventing people like you from being allowed to have children!" she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, "remember when I came home last year, and I had the deep gash across my chest which needed all of those healing salves?" they were about to interrupt so she snapped, "Do you?"

"Yes, you said it was from a mishap during your Female Defence class."

"Yeah well, that was also a lie," Hermione admitted. "A man named Antonin Dolohov hit me with a curse called the _Flame Cutter_ during a skirmish in the Ministry building. I almost died, but that is beside the point. Do you recall Grandfather's knife wound from when he was in North Africa during World War Two? Well he was barely three years older than I am now, and _my_ battle scar is more impressive and was more life threatening than his, so don't you try and tell me I'm too young."

"Y-your being completely honest aren't you?" mum asked in a horrified voice. "This isn't insolence or make believe."

"No."

"Why didn't you tell us the truth!" she wailed.

"Because you _didn't fucking care_ that's why!" Hermione screamed out her long repressed anger. "You've never fucking cared you useless bastards. Here's a tip, if you have a child for no other reason than because it was on some imaginary list of things successful career people have in their lives, you _shouldn't fucking well have children at all_!" She took a second deep, calming breath, "I despise you two, I really do, and now I'm going to alter your memories so you will never even remember me. Then I'm leaving here, probably to get killed helping my only remaining friend kill the most dangerous human being who has ever lived."

They both attempted to speak but Hermione didn't want to hear it, _Silencing_ them both with a casual wave of her wand. A few tears streaked down her face, but for the most part she remained impassive, letting the anger wash away as though it was never there.

"I wish Grandma was alive, it'd be nice to know someone I looked up to could be here to give advice," Hermione finished voicing her thoughts bleakly, wiping her face dry with her left hand. "Enjoy Australia."

"_Obliviate!_"

','

Lens of Sanity  
A bit of an interlude but the chapter was getting stupid long and this seemed a good place to split it… I've never been a fan of _Saint Hermione_, so decided on using SlyGoddess' school bully to establish the character. Also the way _Obliviating_ her parents' went down, awesome!


	5. I'm pointing my wand as hard as I can

','

Of Chaos and Flame  
by Lens of Sanity

','

Chapter Four: I'm pointing my wand as hard as I can

','

As she skulked in a shadowed corner alongside Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley, Ginevra wiped Hag blood from her hand, thinking back over the last three and a half weeks. The black leather-bound book without title she found in the Grimmauld Place library had exactly the thing she needed to solve her problem. It was clearly very old, with the original script in early modern English, and therefore an infuriatingly difficult thing to read.

However the interesting part was a modified version of one of the rituals, annotated in what was clearly a feminine hand, as well as being far more modern than the original text, or so Ginevra presumed given the word selection. Basically the redhead hoped the improved version was as effective as whoever _Quilled _the annotations claimed.

As she'd still not heard from Mundungus Fletcher about the thirty Galleons the man owed her, Ginevra had been forced to stretch what funds she could scrounge together for the needed supplies. The young woman had attained enough powdered Graphorn horn for the _triskaidecagram_, apparently the correct name of a shape combining a pentagram and a thirteen sided star, but it had cost her what she would recently have thought of as an insane amount of gold, leaving her quite literally Knutless.

Both the original and the annotated versions of the ritual had advised on using ground Horntail bone or better, only she couldn't afford it and the dodgy looking woman who presumably owned the Apothecary had been muttering about having purchased too much Graphorn, so Ginevra counted herself lucky. Besides, if Ginevra understood the process as well as she thought she did, _any_ magically reactive substance should work reasonably well, magic being the way it was.

The two sets of linked runes she was forced to carve in her own hand had probably taken the longest time, five in what she recognised from her O.W.L. Ancient Runes class as Phoenician were from the older version, and eight she would tentatively conclude were Egyptian based solely on what she'd seen sneaking her eldest brother's Curse Breaker notes.

Neither the outline in Graphorn horn, nor the linked runes were the active ingredient in the ceremony she had settled on, and from information gleaned collecting the first nine, she found herself staking out a building in Knockturn Alley named Moribund's on a chilly Saturday in July. A place which Ginevra preferred to think of as a Pub, so as not to think too much on what was actually going on behind the constantly locked door.

Downing the inverse version of an Aging Potion the fifteen year old shrank down to a little over four feet in height, her limbs become thin, and her face lost its adult cast, gaining an embarrassing amount of baby fat. 'That was the last of the Potion, and tonight is my last chance. Better get this right first time girl.'

After transfiguring her cloths she stuck her thumb into her mouth and walked out into the street. The preteen girl was dragging along a childhood teddy bear once owed by her friend Luna. Walking tentatively up to the small group she worriedly asked, "Have any of you seen my mummy?"

','

Ginevra slowly finished the smallest human to animal transfiguration she'd ever accomplished, turning the last figure into a large sleeping dog, before the preteen slipped a fifth canine into her sack. Right as she finished Ginevra heard a gruff voice behind her bellow, "What are you doing out here little girl?"

Swiftly she concealed a razor sharp butcher knife behind the Harry Potter teddy bear, and putting on as convincing an air of sweetness as she could manage, Ginevra span around before answering, "My daddy said to wait at the Leaky Cauldron, but a wan'ed go for a 'venture." On second glance the man appeared legitimately concerned for a lost child, so the girl went on, "Can you help carry ma bag mis'ser, its eva' so heavy an' a should be gett'n back now." She looked down at her feet, trying for the image of a precocious girl caught in mischief.

As he took the surprisingly light bag the man went on, Ginevra taking in the words with childlike embarrassment, "It is dangerous to be out by yourself these days. Do not wander away from your father again without telling him…" The man kept up the lecture until they were back at the Cauldron and the young girl said that she would go back to her rooms and think about what she'd done.

When Ginevra entered the front room of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place an hour and a half later, the innate magic of all five men had transfigured them back into human shape, her body similarly returning to its natural buxom form. Her captured ingredients were still heavily unconscious thanks to her reapplying _Stupify_ every twenty or so minutes.

Ginevra arrived at the meticulously prepared basement room, carelessly tossed the sack into a corner and strolled over to a chained man, desperately wailing behind a _Cone of Silence_. "Are you going to let me go then, I told you what you wanted to know didn't I?"

"Yes Mr. Rosier I am a woman of my word. Unlike Tom and his pathetic toys, I am one of the good guys. Once you sign this parchment and drink the potion you will wake up in some alleyway in London safe and sound."

"You never said I had to sign anything," the man protested franticly.

She looked at him, blue eyes chiselled from ice, eventually responding, "It will be a warning. The new _Forget For Now_ potion I overheard my Professor talking about, will remove the memory. However a man like Tom would destroy your mind with Legilimency in order to break through and find out what was blocked. I simply wish you to write yourself a missive, one warning against letting on that you have been Obliviated."

On hearing this reasoning the man eagerly obeyed, and would wake to find himself in a rubbish bin outside an Indian Restaurant, terrifying message in his own hand, and in his own blood, pinned to his chest.

The Full Moon would rise on Sunday July 20th 1997 at 3:22am precisely, and Ginevra spent the remainder of the evening setting up her ritual. She had been running out of time and had offered one of the captured Death Eaters the opportunity for freedom, should they assist her in finding the final five ingredients.

A Mister Brutus Rosier, younger brother to a deceased Death Eater, had taken the girl up on her offer, selling out the location of a brothel which employed not only _Pollies_, which were surprisingly common in the wizarding world, but young muggle children of both genders also. Apparently it had become quite popular to have a bit of authenticity in recent years, and despite what she'd claimed, Ginevra would _not_ have let him go, if not for the obvious revulsion on the man's face when describing the place.

Not that she considered herself at all an expert on the subject, but the redhead thought that she understood what was written in the book bound in black leather. Ceremonial Magic was about sacrifice, the Graphorn powder, runes and so on were necessary for the magic to work, but she would need to _personally g_ive something up in order for it to be successful.

She had found two rituals in the book that she wished to perform, with the second being a method to resist extreme temperatures that would necessitate her accepting a weakness in resisting cold. Ginevra liked this idea, as fire had always been special to her, and she did not want to be harmed by it. Although she would have to wait until Dung gave her the gold he owed, before she could afford buy the necessary ingredients, let alone perform the thing.

There seemed to be quite a steep price to be paid for attempting _this_ ritual, though Ginevra never really hesitated in accepting it, knowing she would've probably gone through with it regardless. It was important to her that she would be useful in the upcoming war, so Ginevra would do whatever she could toward that end.

Tonight's ritual benefit was quite coveted, a method by which a person may become more magically powerful, a strengthening of one's _Corpus Magi_. The nine wizards and four witches she had collected over the last week and a half would be kept alive until there magic was totally drained from them, at which point they would die. Ginevra's magical core would be unceasingly assaulted by their magic day and night until all thirteen keel-over dead, and she would be kept conscious _'riding the knife edge in hurricane force winds'_ if the book was to be believed.

Athamé in both hands she dug the two points into the opposite forearm, right on the stroke of a Full Moon's rise.

Then she began to scream.

','

With a muted _pop_ Hermione appeared just south of the small part wizarding village of Ottery St. Catchpole, slightly pleased despite herself at the flawlessly executed apparition, over a distance by far greater than any she'd previously attempted. She'd stunned her parents after altering their memories, giving their minds several hours of uninterrupted sleep, thereby maximising the chances of a successful and lasting memory charm.

Hermione had then spent a final, surprisingly restful night's sleep in her hated family home.

Which was why she was looking more relaxed than she had been in a long while, enjoying the fresh breeze of midsummer, and the pleasantly rustic smells of south east England as she strolled down the dirt road toward the Burrow. Feeling the light tingle of magic as the Weasley family's wards recognised her and allowed her to enter unmolested, Hermione walked to the back door of the ramshackle home, as she'd been repeatedly asked to use instead of knocking at the front, easing it open with a soft squeal of protesting hinge.

It was late morning but the only person around seemed to be Tonks, who welcomed her with a cheerful smile, a fluttering of hair colour, and a small wave of the hand.

"Hey, where is everyone?" she asked, pointing around the otherwise empty kitchen.

"Molly's out back," Tonks replied, cheerful smile fading somewhat as she tactfully refrained from specifying the newest Weasley gravestone, much to Hermione's relief.

After an awkward moment in which she barely managed to retain her good mood, Hermione just said, "Let's talk about something else."

"Yeah, how was your summer," the metamrphmagus asked shrewdly. "What was with that smile you were wearing when you walked in, you looked like the cat that caught the canary."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said a little too quickly, going over to pour herself some tea. "And my summer was fine, boring for the most part, but fine." Tonks just kept on looking at her with that same piercing expression, and she hastily changed the subject, "Any luck so far with Professor Lupin?"

Tonks was having none of it, and in a demanding tone bluntly asked, "What was his name?"

"What was whose-,"

"The boy's name," Tonks interrupted.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Hermione shouted, trying to act all prim and innocent.

"Down girl," Tonks said with a grin, "Something's got you all hot and bothered, I'm a metamorph we can sense these things with our mysterious powers."

Hermione contained a flush, but she knew Tonks quite well and the young Auror wouldn't stop pestering her until she found out. For once Hermione didn't really feel all that embarrassed about this sort of thing so she gave up the innocent act and simply told her.

"Well, I er-," then she finished in a single breath, "I kind of made out with this Rugby player who lives near me not too long ago, it was only one time but ever since I've been feeling…"

Noticing the young woman trail off, Tonks helpfully supplied, "Randy as fuck?"

Hermione did blush then, but slowly nodded in agreement, "Yeah pretty much."

"Well, details girl."

"Let's just say he has big hands and leave it at that."

The perverted Auror shook her head and went to pour herself some tea, "Hermione, Hermione, take it from me the size of a man's hands has nothing to do with the size of his-,"

"Actually that is not quite true," Hermione exploded, seeing the other girl was going to finish that train wreck of a sentence out loud. "The hands thing I mean."

Tonks raised a questioning eyebrow, "Okay, taking into consideration your vast levels of experience, I'm listening."

"No this is something I read in a muggle book ages ago, and it's not actually hand size that matters," Hermione told her, dropping into her lecturing tone on instinct. "It's the length ratio between annular and index fingers," she pointed to her ring then first finger respectfully to demonstrate, "the lager the ratio the _'better' _ so to speak."

Tonks frowned, looking down at her own hand. "You're making this up to play a trick on me aren't you?"

"Nope, _hard_ science," Hermione said with a grin, "It has something to do with the amount of testosterone which was going through the mother's system at a certain stage during pregnancy."

Right as she finished talking Professor Lupin and Mrs. Weasley came into the room, one getting a trapped look as the sight of Tonks and the other greeting Hermione warmly with a loud, "Hermione dear, it's good to see you got here safely."

"Hey Remus," Tonks said with a dangerously amused expression, "Hermione here was just teaching me something about Palmistry, would you mind if I look a look at your hand for a minute?"

The brunette choked a mouthful her tea as the –not quite couple– wandered off before asking, "Is Ginny around Mrs. Weasley, I've not seen her?"

"My layabout daughter has yet to venture out of her room," the Weasley matriarch said in a disapproving tone.

She became a lot less disapproving and far more frantic when she learned her youngest child had vanished without a trace.

','

It had been several days since Ginevra was discovered missing from her family home, but she was a touch on the busy side, a little too preoccupied with other things to have been able to accurately keep track of something as mundane as time's relentless passage.

The basic gist to the ritual Ginevra had resolved herself to attempting was actually fairly straightforward, as far as she'd been capable of understanding at any rate. The book informed her that while strong magical blood was important in surviving the ritual, and had been quite verbose in explaining how those of _Lesser Blood_ would undoubtedly die in the attempt, the _most_ magically powerful individuals were always those who had not only strength of blood, but the strength of circumstance.

There had been an analogy of a sword's forging process transformed a quality metal into something a fair sight more deadly, with the idea of _fire_ and rebirth striking close to the redhead's personal mentality and familiarity with that particular elemental. And so the instructions and theorising had made sense to Ginevra, in that she could see how one born powerful would become more so should they practice, pushing the limits.

To Ginevra it also seemed analogous to the way a person who would strive to develop stronger muscles would profit from running regularly.

The ritual itself was named _'the Trial of Ares,'_ or at least that was how she'd translated it from _ye olde englishe_, and its purpose was to force a large amount of magical growth on the subject, in a "relatively" short amount of time. The amount of growth would be based on the individual strength of the five principle ingredients, or thirteen as in the case of the adapted ceremony, as well as a few other more minor details Ginevra did not fully understand.

Accurately carved runes and correctly prepared potion would be the things which aided her in actually surviving the process, as they would supposedly keep her focused and aware enough to _ride out the storm_. They boosted concentration and allowed her to ignore fatigue enough to hold her edge, although on the downside their effects did less than _nothing_ in helping her deal with the pain.

"_**Ghaxx-!**_" she had been screaming at the very tops of her lungs for more than four days now, so it was of small surprise that whatever words she had been using at the beginning had long since been abandoned, favouring instead incomprehensible wails of anguish. Guttural roars the kinds of which mixed well with those of the few surviving Death Eaters who were aiding her, albeit without their consent.

As was mentioned the runes and potion did nothing to dull the pain, and as counterintuitive as it sounded, this was actually a very good thing. Tremendous waves of power, at once molten starbright and glacial cold, crashed into her very magic from one direction and then another. Violence which never let up or gave her an instant's respite, long enough for even thought. She was forced to the forefront every second, a single moment where she lost her grip or her focus would end it, frying her from existence itself.

In a situation like this pain was your friend, it showed you how you were still blessedly alive.

Had she time for thought she might have been reflecting on whether or not the price would turn out to be too high. Not the pain or the struggle, the price which would be demanded even if she lived through the experience. From what Ginevra had read in the book bound in black leather, she would be forced to sacrifice _'the best base joy of her heart,'_ whatever the hell _that_ meant.

Whatever it was would clearly be a big thing to lose, maybe the taste of cookies or the feel of summer sunshine; sex, drugs, or rock and roll, the enjoyment she'd doubtlessly take in setting a guy on fire. Ginevra didn't know, but whatever it was would certainly be worth it, raw power at her fingertips would make this war something she'd be far more likely to flourish under.

Not to mention how much more useful she'd be in supporting Harry and his side of the conflict.

As the idea failed to be even so much as noted by her subconscious mind, focused as it was on riding the hurricane, and as the last man fell still, sweet darkness finally claimed the shapely redheaded.

','

"Okay girl, do you understand what I want you to do?" Harry's snowy owl Hedwig nipped him affectionately as she bobbed her head in an affirmative gesture, flying from the window, and out of line of his sight. It was a desperate gesture Harry knew, but from such a limited location it was all he could think of to try. The idea being that Hedwig was by far the smartest owl the dark haired teen had ever known, and that even though others had doubtlessly tried it with other messenger birds, Hedwig would be more effective, more likely to succeed than would any more mundane post owl.

It was the twenty seventh of July and a letter informing Harry of the imminent release from his yearly cell did not bring with it happy news. This was due entirely to the fact that his girlfriend Gin Weasley had gone missing seven days ago, and no-one had any clue as to what had happened to her. If the letter was to be believed she had eaten an early dinner and gone to her room for sleep, then the next morning had simply not been there, without any trace of struggle, no missing clothes, and her wand still on the bedside table.

She was just not there.

This had Harry far too worried to be overly concerned about the sensational nature of Rita Skeeter's newest article, which up until opening the newest missive had consumed his thoughts, and he'd eventually decided on sending his faithful owl on the bare hope that it could find her. As Hedwig hadn't simply flown in a wide circle and returned, Harry was at least a little hopeful that it might help.

Failing to put his worry aside Harry went back to mechanically packing the rest of his surprisingly scant belongings. 'Aren't I supposed to be rich?' Harry mused incredulously, thinking he should have more to my name than two inherited magical items, a fake locket Horcrux, and the collected detritus of six years failed schooling.

Violently slinging a _Potter Stinks_ badge into the waste bin beside a crumpled and discarded owl cage he thought that, even though Draco wanted to be on that Astronomy Tower just as little as Harry had, he'd still like to shove one of those damned badges up the blond ponce's arse.

Finishing up he looked around the bare and pathetic room, glad to see the back of the place after sixteen long, pointlessly miserable years. Sat thinking about the missing redhead in silence for a while he eventually heard the familiar bawling shout of his uncle drift up the stairs in a loud bark of; "Boy!"

This had not been an entirely unusual event over the past few days. However Harry had gotten the distinct impression that the waste of a man was holding back most of his ire for one reason or another, something had happened and Vernon was acting differently, scratching at that hand the way he always was lately.

Just as Harry suspected, the fat man had once again decided he and his family were not moving out like the Order advised them. This time Vernon had come to the conclusion his nephew wanted to use _'some hocus pocus'_ to steal the precious Number Four away from him, as well as the rest of the Dursley family.

Given his obvious feelings for the place Harry found this claim outlandish in the extreme. Remembering back to his thoughts earlier in the day, Harry reached for his pouch and spilled the contents onto the table in a wide and impressive scatter over the coffee table, directly between the two men.

"What do you think you are doing boy, what is all that?"

The sixteen year old locked jade eyes on his relative, at this moment he had too much to worry about; Horcruxes, war, dead friends, and a girlfriend missing, probably dead. Vernon and Petunia were not important enough, they did not get the consideration due family, and right then Harry could not spare the necessary effort.

What Vernon saw in that gaze was something he would never have expected; the eyes of a man who had defied dragons and Dark Lords, fought for his life and seen friends and enemies die in the chaos of battle. And in a cold tone which would have been eerily reminiscent of a man named Tom Riddle, so many years and so many rituals ago, Harry began to speak.

"It is gold. As you can well see with your own eyes," he said, softly enunciating each word. "I have a Vault full of the stuff. Never mind a house of my own." Vernon felt fear stirring in his chest at this tone, something primal and terrifying which caused his pig-like eyes to widen in dread. "I do not want. Nor have I ever wanted. Anything from you pathetic animals."

As the man's meaty paws shook, fearful of even twitching toward the coffee table and scattered gold, Harry just scooped up the scant Galleons he had left from the end of the previous year, a gesture of mannerisms dismissing the man's presence completely.

Sweeping his green gaze over his closest blood relatives Harry suddenly saw them for what they were, pitiable, _small_ people not even worthy of his notice. It had been too much, he had too much to do, and not enough help nor enough knowledge to do it.

"Okay Aunt Petunia," he began in the same controlled voice, pinning his relative with a stare holding no affection and no remorse, "How about a little truth from you? And I shall decide whether or not I am willing to go to any effort to keep you alive."

"W-what do you mean?" she asked with a gulp.

"As it happens I would like your opinion. Had the two of you been murdered by one of the most dangerous human beings in history," he swept a hand between the two adults, "would Lily Potter have stuffed Duddykins in a cupboard under the _fucking_ _stairs_?" Harry barked that last, causing a flinch from all three. "You know," he continued quietly, "in an attempt to force magic into him."

The silence began to drag on for long seconds, and then long minutes, as the obvious answer to this question simply floated there like a living thing, and all the while Harry refusing to blink or to look away.

"Then explain to me why I should ask good people to waste important resources protecting you from the same man who killed my mother, because to be perfectly honest with you, this is _my war_. I am the one running it for all intents and purposes. And with my girlfriend having recently gone missing, I'm beginning to think any effort going into keeping you three alive should be better spent looking for HER!"

He punctuated that last with a hammerstroke of fist smashing into the coffee table, jagged shards of glass splintering in all directions. Red droplets falling from his lacerated hand, Harry swept out the room, a palpable weight of magic bleeding from his retreating form, keeping the muggles hardly able to _breathe_ let alone talk.

','

"So the plan has once again changed?" Harry asked in confirmation, standing a touch more confidently than Hermione was used to seeing him, weight planted evenly on the soles of both feet, a stance which spoke of a whipcrack's coiled tension. He seemed older to her somehow, like there was gravity to the words he spoke, a surety in his attitude which she rarely saw outside of broomstick riding or life threatening situations.

Standing beside her Thestral, Hermione watched as her friend surveyed the group gathered in his relatives' kitchen. Harry smiled at Fleur Delacour's presence, nodded a silent greeting in her direction, acknowledging each of the people who'd volunteered to act as his advanced guard, and receiving recognition from each of them in turn.

"Very well," Harry said, seeming to have ran through the implications of the new plan to his own satisfaction. Turning he addressed the only non-magical people in the room, "It seems as though you are still useful to us Vernon," Harry spoke in a voice which made Hermione shiver, even as she watched the overweight man blanch. "You are to be a distraction while I escape, please try not to be too much of a nuisance to Ms. Jones and Mr. Diggle. They will be doing their best to keep your wife and son alive after all."

"H-Harry," her friend's dumpy cousin began, his parents trying to shuffle from the room. The boy was clearly forcing himself to speak, all the while refusing to look up from his feet. It was very strange and making the muggles look at him oddly.

"Yes Dudley?" Harry tersely asked, already moving on to the next thing.

"_**Xxxx**_," Dudley said some word that Harry clearly misheard.

"What was that?" her friend asked again, making sure to get the young boy fully into his field of vision.

"I said thanks," Dudley repeated, still refusing to look up, "for that Dementoid thing the other year."

Hermione noticed the expression of shocked disbelief, and a few moments of vacillation past before Harry spoke again, "Please look at me Dudley," the boy did so looking terrified. "You're welcome. If the opportunity comes up try to pass it on." Then Harry glared at his Aunt, and with a gesture of command from her nephew, the rest of the Dursley family was dragged from the house by Lily Evans elder sister.

This less than heartfelt parting of ways caused a few quiet mutterings from the Order of the Phoenix, who didn't quite appreciate the situation Harry had been living in during his childhood, and even Hermione had never suspected it had been quite as bad as it seemed from their interaction this evening. After a while her friend noticed all eyes were on him and he smiled a small, shy smile at the room.

"So are you Harry or Scary Harry?" Fred or George asked bluntly.

"What?" his normal, open face looked bemused, as though he had no idea what the handsome prankster was talking about.

"Yeah," the other twin agreed, "I think I actually peed a little, what about you brother of mine?"

"What are you guys on about now?" Harry asked in annoyance.

Hermione ignored this, asking, "They really have no idea who you are do they Harry? Your Aunt and Uncle I mean, you never told them _anything_."

"They wouldn't have let me had I tried," he responded wearily. "Maybe I'll track them down one day and tell them, I doubt it though." Waving this thought off, Harry turned to the exceptionally _tall_ dark-skinned Auror, calling, "Kingsley, I thought you were looking after the muggle Prime Minister?"

"He can get along without me for one night," Kingsley, replied with a bit of a smile. "You're more important."

Bizarrely, instead of this statement causing Harry to blush or defend that it wasn't that big of a deal, Harry seemed to nod at this as a _self evident truth_. Not from personal arrogance either, but a humble acceptance that he had a job to do which really _did_ make him more important than the Prime Minister of England!

Harry truly _had_ changed a lot since she'd last seen him.

"No time for this rubbish," Moody cut in, "Potter yank out some of your hair for the potion, our only chance is to use decoys. Even You-Know-Who can't _split himself into seven_."

Harry did as asked, attempting to hide the same spluttering choke which Hermione experienced on hearing Mad-Eye's unfortunate phrasing.

The emphasis was probably imagined anyways.

','

"No," Harry said shortly, interrupting the grizzled man as he explained the rest of the plan.

"Potter this is no time for-," Moody began but Harry interrupted him again, voice gaining a quiet and more confident strength. Out of the corner of his eye he spied Fleur not so subtly sticking her hands down the front of her pants, now that the French woman's body had been transformed via Polyjuice.

He refused to become distracted by this for the time being.

"I'd be too low down in the sidecar, and I won't be capable of bringing my wand around if they come at us from behind," he finished looking calmly into the scarred man's mismatched eyes, also ignoring a transformed _Hermione_ of all people taking her cues from the Veela's example. "Besides you were right, I am probably the best on a broom, so it should make a decent backup in case the first plan fails."

"I'll expand the seat on the motorbike if you like," Hermione offered to the room, bringing the attention of all the adults, but with eyes for only her friend. "It'll probably be a tight squeeze but you will fit."

"Thanks Hermione," he said simply, before throwing up his hands, glaring pointedly at what Mundungus was doing. "Oh for the love of magic," he exploded, "would you bunch of perverts at least _pretend_ you're being subtle about it!"

Five minutes later Harry was on the back of Sirius' old motorbike; Firebolt attached crossways on his back via sticky charm, with Hagrid in the driver's position gunning the engine for all it was worth. The sidecar had been cut away and discarded on the lawn of Privet Drive, vanishing quickly behind him in the distance as the seven pairs shot off in different directions.

When the chaos of a Death Eater attack began Harry didn't even flinch, it was like he'd _known_ they were going to be attacked, that the simple plan was doomed to failure, and an easy extraction the Order had been all but certain of hadn't a chance in hell of being the way it was going to go down. So without missing a beat Harry grabbed onto the back of Hagrid's coat, with a hop and a twist found himself back to back with the half Giant, broomstick sandwiched between them, wand snapping into his hand with nary a thought.

"_Aegis Contego!"_ he roared the first spell which came to his mind, and with a powerful drag on his magic a two meter disc of translucent silver pushed itself into the world, effortlessly shielding the motorbike from three separate splashes of unfriendly spellfire.

A sickly flash of Unforgivable green wiped the Aegis from existence contemptuously, and if not for a hasty barrel roll from Hargrid, the beam of death would have sailed over the determined looking teenager's head, connecting terminally with the massive man.

Taking stock of the thirty or so hooded figures, Harry assessed the threats with a single sweeping glance, noting the scattered confusion from having not anticipated dealing with so many Harry Potters, and finally that the two bike riding figures were being pursued by only five or so. Aiming two overcharged Reductor Curses at the leading figure and a nonverbal _Impactus_ toward the second, he managed to knock the trailing man from his broom, connecting at the centre of mass as he'd intended.

"Harry, hold on tight I'm gonna try summat," Hagrid bellowed, over the top of a howling wind and second raised Aegis.

The wash of Killing Curses flew by on either side, and over his shoulder Harry shouted, "Punch it!"

With a roar of white-hot dragonfire the bike sped forward into the night, arcing high into the air, leaping through the summer sky at the pace of a bullet jumping from a gun's muzzle. The left fisted grip he held onto the back of the half Giant's thick brown coat barely kept him connected to the man, let alone still seated on the bike, and by the time they reached maximum velocity Harry was certain at least a couple of his smaller fingers had been broken.

As the bike slowed Harry disentangled his hand roughly, suppressing the agonising jolt of pain, once again raising his wand to sweep for threats. They had a solid sixty seconds before any Death Eaters caught up to them, and in the pandemonium which normally exists during these moments fighting for his life, Harry found the time of respite a veritable eternity, easily enough to regain his focus after blocking out the pain.

When the two who were still chasing them joined battle once again, Harry tried to tag the leader with a reflexive Stunner, noticing with surprise that the man's partner was an eerily blank faced former Knight Bus conductor; Stan Shunpike.

"_Expelliarmus!"_ Harry yelled, causing the _real_ Death Eater to disapparate away… right after he shouted, "That's him, it's him, it's the real one!"

If Harry had a _bad shit o'meter_ it would have been maxing out at, 'holy bollixing fuck!' following this turn of events.

"Hagrid, dragonfire now!" he ordered, jumping to stand on the bike's cushioned seat. "Punch it!"

Pushing for every ounce of physical strength he could reach for, Harry snapped out with both his legs the instant before Hagrid shot off into the distance for the second time. He leapt high into the air, twisting his body into a graceful reverse swan dive, barely getting singed by the dragonfire as he plummeted to the earth.

Now that Hagrid was mostly safe, he scrambled to remove his Firebolt from its crosswise position on his back, indifferent to the stabbing pain of his broken fingers, and the rapidly approaching inevitability of terra firma. He _knew_ more than felt the instant Voldemort apparated to his location, a deep shadowy malevolence in the air, darkly palpable in the skies above suburban Surrey.

Finally swinging the Firebolt under him, Harry slammed wand against the handle, grasping with eight fingers and pulling up the most desperate Wronski Feint of his life. Voldemort swept down toward his plunging fall, flying like smoke on the wind, exactly as desperate to close on his foe as Harry was to avoid smashing headfirst onto concrete.

At the lowest point of his arc Harry saw he was going to connect with a muggle woman, who'd for some unholy reason decided had decided to be out walking her dog this late at night, and he knew even if he was going to pull up in time to avoid the deck, the woman was going get splattered by this racing body. Jerking the Firebolt as slightly as he could, Harry diverted his path just as much as he dared, pulling up with all his might as he did so, all the while mindful of the oncoming malice that was Lord Voldemort.

The white of his tattered left trainer became splattered with gore as the muggle's poor dog found itself introduced to a wizard's foot moving laterally at nearly one hundred miles an hour.

Despite all the other really pressing shit he was dealing with, Harry felt he heart go out to that poor dog, 'I mean damn, that sucks!'

The Dark Lord was on him not a moment later, flying without aid of broom or Thestral, floating on the air as Harry pulled his Firebolt between two semi-detached houses. He smashed through a light wooden gate, spinning with every drop of skill he could squeeze out of his flying abilities, slaloming through suburbia, past roads and into traffic, frantic to keep Voldemort from having the bare instant he needed to connect a lethal spell.

Overhead in the sky Harry spared a glance for the return of Hagrid who was having at it with the Dark Lord's entourage, utilising the spell barrages' illegally equipped to the motorcycle and jabbing at the dark cloaks with that pink umbrella of his. Through the haze of his own hectic chase Harry still managed to keep himself aware enough of the surroundings to notice the castings which turned Sirius' bike to fragmented wreckage, knocking his friend into freefall.

Without thought Harry dragged his mount around like he was wrestling a wild bull, heedless of the Dark Lord who'd finally began closing on him, speeding into oncoming traffic to buy himself scant seconds. Pulling his broom into a vertical intercept course, Harry felt his famous scar burst open and the terrible emotion of victory Lord Voldemort was feeling stabbed into his mind, and with it the cold sense of death he always felt as the Dark Lord charged that unblockable spell.

Without Harry taking his eyes off Hargid's decent, the eleven inch holly wand branded itself against his palm, dragging his right arm at an impossible angle. The torturous ripping pain of muscles tearing and his shoulder dislocating, matched well with the wrenching tug of his magic, pulled from Harry's chest and out the tip of his Phoenix wand.

Harry caught Hagrid painfully in midair, and with an inhuman scream of "No!" bellowing in the near distance, made a risky move both personally and legally. He drained the last of his reserves, apparating his magically resistant friend to the Tonks' house, and safety.

Wounds, injuries, and exhaustion, they all dropped away with the last of Harry Potter's consciousness.

','

Lens of Sanity  
Okay; the hand thing Hermione talked about is actually true believe it or not, so massive ring finger on guys and massive index finger on girls is what you should be looking for. Hermione knowing about it could go to explain why she's so inexplicably drawn to Ron in canon, I'm just saying.  
If you want to see something legitimately funny, I'd suggest spinning back and Googling the chapter title… I laughed a number of times  
To the scores of you who undoubtedly think power boosting rituals are stupid, well yeah… Still, I always wondered how one might work, and murdering thirteen "ingredients" sort of makes the thing Dark/Evil magic automatically, AND I'm pretty sure most people trying it would die in the attempt  
Lastly, if you're of the opinion Harry's acting OOC; my interpretation of DH was that canon!Harry abused his personality disorder, inventing a delusion in which Petunia really did _Wuv him_ deep down… Whereas here; Ron is dead, Gin is missing, and Harry _isn't_ a virgin (which is one of those things you think is really important until you get over it, realise it's actually no big deal, and changes nothing.) So he's under a little more pressure, and instead of pandering to his relatives, goes all Dark Lord on them…


	6. Inanna's Breath

','

Of Chaos and Flame  
by Lens of Sanity

','

Chapter Five: Inanna's Breath

','

With a headache worse than the morning she woke in the Hufflepuff girls' dorm last term, following Emma Dobbs' totally out of hand fourteenth birthday party, Ginevra came back to the land of the living. The horrifying form of a monstrously huge white owl, easily the size of the Hogwarts Express was looming over her, clearly about to peck out her eyes.

"Gyaaaah!" she screamed, clumsily diving to her feet, arms flailing to avoid the worst of the imminent wounds.

Eventually, when no attack came, she noticed that the owl was in fact simply very close when it woke her, and _not_ an eldritch monstrosity sent from the Netherverse to gobble her up with all the other naughty little girls. This realisation didn't stop her heart from beating at a thousand miles per hour unfortunately, nor did the gigantic adrenaline spike leave her system in a hurry, so she just dropped to her hands and knees, dry heaving and shaking for a while.

Eventually Ginevra calmed down enough to perform a spell to determine the time and date, finding that she'd been gone from the Burrow for a full seven days and change. She guessed that maybe four or five of those where spent screaming in the timelessness of '_the Trial of Ares_,' with two or three spent flat out on the hard stone floor in the basement of House Black.

At a sudden flash she realised what all of this meant, and as it hit her, Ginevra let out a loud scream of triumph; "Ha! Ha-ha! It Woooork-eeeed! Weeee-ee." Ginevra danced in a circle laughing with joy, the owl simply looking down on her display with an imperious dignity. "Oh, don't look at me like that Hedwig. It worked, this is great."

Deciding she'd best clean things up a little before she returned home, and attempted to feed everyone her mostly believable story, Ginevra asked Hedwig to go back to the Burrow with the letter unopened, informing the owl that she'd be over there shortly. With an obvious look of dissatisfaction the snowy owl eventually complied with her request, winging its way out of the room as the redhead set about carting away the corpses.

It didn't take much time before the young woman noticed her magic was screaming at her in agony, and that she could barely perform any spells at all.

Cleaning was probably going to take a while.

_Long_ hours later Ginevra, bleary eyed despite the days of unconsciousness, stumbled from the Knight Bus, leaving a tip for Monkfish and thanks for getting her home safe and fast. Early morning light was beginning to outline the eastern horizon as the redhead pocketed the gold she'd managed to liberate from the Death Eaters, along with a number of captured wands, traipsing her way toward her distinctive family home.

Just as she was about to push open the front door she heard a deep voice bark; "Stop right where you are and keep your wand where I can see it," and as she felt the uncomfortable heat associated with a wand being pressed to her throat, the young woman decided to comply without fuss.

"It's me Gin, the youngest Weasley sibling," looking over her shoulder she recognised a familiar tall, broad, and bald-headed frame, "do you not recognise me Kingsley?"

"Drop your wand and into the house, we need to verify it's really you." Shacklebolt said this in an abrupt tone, brooking no nonsense.

In short order Ginevra was plonked down in her father's favourite chair and her family began hurrying into the room, distrustful looks on everyone's faces. Harry and Hedwig were coming down from the top floor and would be there any moment, but at that time she did not question how she knew this fact, transient as it was in the face of more pressing issues. Eventually her family and a few friends were sitting around her looking suspicious, a little hopeful, and beneath it all she noted an alert sombreness hanging heavily on the Burrow.

"What did you get for Yule when you were nine years old Ginny?" her father questioned directly.

Twigging on that they are testing for a Polyjuice imposter, she just answered, then went on to look mischievously at her second eldest brother, "…and Charlie lost his virginity to a muggle named Sarah Townsend. I walked in on the two of them when he'd been stupid enough to bring her into a magical home when I was six, although he may have sworn me to secrecy after it happened."

Charlie managed a trademark Weasley blush mixed with a half hearted glare, and she smiled at him sweetly, taking note of the shoulder held rigid in a magical sling.

"That's her, you can tell by the eye twinkling thing she does when she's up to mischief. She's like Dumbledore in that," Bill declared to the room, confirming her identity for all those present. They all smiled a little and she was given back her wand, before the eldest asked, "So what happened, tell us where you have been?"

Closing her eyes in obvious fatigue, Ginevra went about describing her completely untrue story, cautiously hopeful she was still a good enough liar to pull it off.

','

Hermione sat on a tattered armchair listening, still uncomfortable from the cracked ribs and piercing feeling of Skele-Gro as it worked its healing magic on her, repairing the damage Kingsley had barely protected her from the evening before last. The woman with that distinct flow of bright crimson hair was outlining her recollection of the previous few days, admitting to a large gap after being hit by some unknown spell by some unknown assailant, when she'd been going into Ottery St. Catchpole to purchase _marjoram_.

Whatever the hell that was.

Mrs. Weasley had predictably interrupted at this juncture, going into a short rant about how reckless it was to go shopping during a civil war and, while Hermione couldn't exactly fault this logic based on results, she couldn't quite stop herself from thinking the matriarchal woman was taking things a little too far.

Ginny-, no, it was Ginevra now, she'd been pushing for everyone to stop addressing her like a House-Elf ever since the end of last term, and Hermione decided to at least attempt to _think_ of her as she'd prefer, all the while pushing aside feelings for such a _speciesist_ attitude. Gin-evra spoke in a slightly confused tone, swaying a little in obvious exhaustion, seeming to be explaining her situation as honestly as she could.

"I eventually came to," Ginevra spoke tiredly, "and there were these two men who I think might have been Death Eaters because of the black cloaks, only they thought I was asleep still." Looking a touch hesitant she went on, "I kind of stabbed one and took his wand, and the other one threw a curse at me before I stunned him. I guess I got out of there somehow because I was, and still kind of am _really_ tired. I called the Knight Bus and the next thing I know I'm getting attacked by Auror Shacklebolt."

"Hold on," Hermione stopped the other girl, raising her hand and attempting to keep her weight off her ribs. "What day do you think it is?"

Ginevra's eyes went to the top left corner of the room for an extended moment, uncertainly replying, "Saturday?"

"No I mean the date."

"Oh, the twenty first of July," she trailed off. "Now that you mention it, aren't you here a week early Harry?"

Harry didn't respond and his green eyes met hers, he was thinking exactly what Hermione was thinking, but it was Moody who spoke, "I think you've been Obliviated girl."

"I-, I've been Obliviated?" Gin asked uncomfortably.

"Yeah, it's the twenty ninth, you're missing a week," Harry said. "Is there any way to check?"

"Yeah, I'll do it," Hermione said, raising her wand and muttering a lengthy incantation before meeting the other girl's eyes.

_She was in the centre of a swirling vortex, flames hot enough to flashboil steel, a raging inferno of chaotic magic. A tornado of hectic fire, frenzied and uncontrollable, buffeting Hermione from every side as she pulled her will together, attempting to hold on the last vestiges of sanity. The roaring heat, and searing flames, assaulted her with such violence and savagery she could barely hold together enough sense of self to understand even in the smallest way what was happening to her. A mere instant before her mind was scorched beyond the frayed ends of sanity lost… _

Hermione barely managed to pull her mind free of raging destruction, the memory charm and Legilimency variant she'd learned while research methods of disposing of her parents, a tool of diagnostics had almost killed her.

"Wow," Hermione spoke at last, migraine pounding behind her eyes to counterpoint the physical pain in her ribs. "What in the name of-,"

"Gyah!" Moody yelled, and Hermione realised the old Auror had probably done something similar to check for an Obliviation.

"Yeah," she spoke, "let's not do that again."

"That's no kind of Occlusion I've ever experienced," Moody said, massaging his temples.

"No, it's okay, I think I remember now," the redhead spoke after a time, rubbing her temples like the other two. "I-I don't think I was memory charmed at all. I remember, after I stunned that second Death Eater, a group of his friends jumped me from behind, and there was this massive explosion. It's fuzzy, like it was in the Room of Requirement, accidental magic maybe? But when I got grabbed I was so furious it went _kaboom_, and then I suppose I Apparated away, because I was somewhere else when I woke up. _That's_ when I called the Knight Bus."

Hermione wasn't sure why this story seemed a little off to her, but the small tickle of instinct was there. As Ginevra finished her halting tale, Moody snuck up behind her and dumped a goblet of transparent liquid over her head.

"By gods and magic," Gin screeched, "What the fuck!" Moody unceremoniously yanked at her left sleeve and checked for a Dark Mark, finding nothing but pale, lightly freckled skin. "Seriously, what the hell's wrong with you?"

"What are you doing Mad-Eye," Harry barked, looking serious and in Hermione's opinion more than a little intimidating.

"Thief's Downfall," the Auror said shortly. "It's a goblin concoction which strips away glamours and enchantments. I don't have much of my personal stash left, but this girl's story has more than a few holes if you ask me."

"So what?" Gineva asked, glaring. "You thought I was under the Imperius Curse or something?"

"Does no-one any hurt to check."

"Well I hope that proves I'm not," she said angrily. "You know what, fuck this!"

"Ginny, language," Mrs. Weasley bellowed on reflex.

"I've just stabbed and possibly killed a guy," the redhead span to her mother, "I'm not exactly feeling up to this right now, and I'm going to bed." To illustrate this she stomped across the room toward the stairs, swaying once again with equal parts fatigue and anger, briefly muttering, "It's good to see you Harry," as she passed him, soft fingertips brushing his cheek.

Hermione, along with everyone in the room, watched her leave with some measure of sympathy, and a little of confusion. Although she noticed Harry's eyes didn't stray much above the waist, left hand absently rising to his face.

','

Hermione stayed around Harry as he went for his physical check-up. He'd slept away a full day, not regaining consciousness at all following his forced side-along with Hagrid, so the majority of his injuries had been healed by the time he was shaken awake at the safe return and subsequent interrogation of his girlfriend. The palm of his right hand was apparently still stiff even though the Burn Salve had mended the second degree burns, and all the bones of the two smallest fingers on his left hand had been vanished and re-grown with Skele-Gro while he'd slept.

By far the most severe injury had been done to his right arm and shoulder, with dislocation having been fixed easily, while the muscle tearing and tendon snappings had required every bit of skill the Order physician, Sturgis Podmore possessed. Her friend could still use the arm, such was the incredible power of magical means of healing, but he'd be tender and aching for the next few weeks at even the lightest of movements.

When Hermione asked about it he'd said that even now, barely an hour after Mr. Podmore had shown disapproval at Harry's insistence of neglecting a sling, he admitted he was beginning to second guess the decision. Ginevra being alive and well, if flat on her back with magical exhaustion, seemed to have left the man with an elated sense of ease, a far cry from the heaviness Harry had doubtless been carrying all summer.

It was as though the first piece of good news he'd been offered in a long while left him more optimistic for the future.

Once her ribs were deemed to be as healed as they were going to be, and she'd been informed that the bones themselves would still be weak for the next month or so, Hermione had gone on to enquire as to the injuries of the remaining members of the extraction team.

Charlie Weasley, the strongest and most obviously muscular member of his family, had taken a _Sectumsempra_ from Snape in the upper arm while protecting his brother George from the back of his new model Comet, Professional level Quidditch skills alone keeping the twin alive. The scarring was pretty bad, and as Snape was the only one they knew of who was aware of the countercurse, there had only been so much Mr. Podmore could do.

Charlie had lost a little range of motion, but it could have been a lot worse, and the scar was going to be with him for life.

Dung Fletcher had fled immediately on being directly in Voldemort's crosshairs, forcing Alastor Moody to sling a rainbow of distractions before bugging out too, taking one seventh of the misdirection out of the fight early. It had been that or take a pointless Killing curse, and Hermione still remembered how very angry the Auror had been on dragging Fletcher to the Burrow by his ear, tossing the thief painfully into a corner.

No, there had been only a single really _bad_ injury taken during the mission two nights previously, and that was suffered by the other twin; Fred Weasley.

Regardless of Arthur Weasley's best efforts, his son had been hit with a curse which had initially baffled any attempts at first aid which the under qualified members of the Order had been attempting. It had taken Mrs. Weasley herself to bulldoze over everybody else's opinions, downing Kingsley Shacklebolt with a right cross to the jaw even. The enraged matriarch had kept casting at the bald Auror until he revealed the _Secret_ which protected the Dursley family safe house, and far more importantly the destination of Healer Podmore.

Apparating on her lonesome Mrs. Weasley apparently tore down all the wards not linked to the Fidelius Charm, and forcibly side-along apparated the man as he was assisting a self effacing Vernon Dursley in unpacking his belongings.

Sturgis Podmore quickly identified the spell as a Blood Freezing curse, and set about draining ichor-like black blood from Fred's veins. The curse had been active too long, so while Fred was still alive and stable, he was also in a coma, unlikely to wake for several weeks at the earliest.

Hermione couldn't imagine how things could have possibly gone worse without anyone dying.

She didn't know why she felt as though they'd gotten off lucky either.

Nor could Hermione understand why being around so many men she'd not given a second glance at before, was making her want to do a repeat performance of Sally Peas' Mr. David.

Of those three thoughts one of them was not like the others, although this fact did _not_ occur to Hermione as she squeezed her way by a broad shouldered figure on the way out, sense of touch flaring, her loins burning with desire.

','

"Did you get it?" asked Harry later that day, the scorching sunlight of late afternoon streaming through the low Burrow windows.

"Yes Potter," Mad-Eye told him tiredly, "Minerva allowed me to borrow it as you assumed. Now will you please tell me _why_ this is so important?"

"Kingsley mate, are you busy?" Harry shouted over to the side of the room, where the man had been accepting a cold drink from Mrs. Weasley. Shacklebolt had taken to dropping in on the Burrow after his shift guarding the Prime Minister was over, as apparently this was the new Order Headquarters until after the wedding.

"Are you going to tell me now?" the cantankerous man asked again once Kingsley walked over.

"My wand did something weird during the broom chase," Harry told them. "It fired a spell I've never seen before or even heard of, and I think it saved me from Voldemort's Killing Curse."

They both looked at him strangely and Remus, trailed by a bouncing Hermione, walked in as well. "Your wand fired a spell?" Hermione said dubiously. "Like on its own?"

"Yeah."

"Harry," Remus began slowly, in that calm voice one uses when talking to young children and crazy people. "Wands don't fire spells by themselves."

"Yeah, I'm sorry Harry but what you're saying is completely impossible," Hermione said with an avalanche of certainty in her tone.

"Trust me," he responded seriously, "I wasn't even looking at Voldemort when my wand burned itself to my palm and tore my shoulder apart." Pointing to the arm in question he finished, "I mean, did you see the state of that injury? I couldn't have done something like if I tried."

"I suppose it could have been accidental magic," Remus said, apparently trying and failing to act reasonable. "Young children tend to do all kinds of strange things before they're trained, and you were in a high pressure situation, so maybe…"

"Just-, just shut up okay, please?" Harry pleaded, so sick of everyone thinking he was special, capable of pulling super Voldemort defeating magic out his arse whenever he needed to. Turning toward the two Aurors he said, "I wanted to ask if you guys could recognise the spell. How do I extract the memory anyway?"

A few minutes later Harry's memory of everything between taking off with Hagrid on the motorbike, to blacking out when apparating away, was swirling like wind and mist, deep in the stone bowl of Albus Dumbledore's old Pensieve. Harry, Hermione, Remus, and the Aurors Shacklebolt and Moody all dove into the memory.

The swan dive had been overdramatic in Harry's opinion.

It looked cool but was a bit over the top, something Gilderoy Lockhart might try in one of his ridiculous stories. He was favoured with a few surprised looks at the spell selection and accuracy, and Hermione visibly winced at the sheer number of murderously dangerous broom manoeuvres, close calls, and outright lunacy he'd managed to survive out flying Voldemort. At the end of which Harry watched as his right arm seemed to literally try to tear itself free of his body; a beautiful spurt of perfect golden flames erupted from his wandtip, flowing with an intense surge of magical energy, seeming to shatter the wand grasped in the Dark Lord's hand.

Mad-Eye did something to the Pensieve at Harry's request, those few seconds of memory repeated over and over in slow motion. The wand Voldemort had been using was _not_ the yew wand brother to his holly, and in the dimness of memory Harry could see frustration and rage on the Dark Lord's snake-like face, as once again something totally unpredictable prevented Voldemort from killing his enemy. Most of all Harry watched the spell, those golden flames he knew nothing about. He didn't _need_ to know anything about the spell to understand that he liked it.

"Well?" Harry asked the Aurors on exiting the Pensieve, finishing the snorted shoving motion necessary to get the silvery liquid back into his skull. "Any ideas?"

"No," Remus admitted and Kingsley just shook his head in the negative.

"What are you wasting my time for," Moody said eventually. "Whatever Albus taught you, there is no reason to drag us through this for a pat on the head."

"What are you on about?" Harry asked with a scowl. "Dumbledore didn't teach me any magic last year if that's what you're thinking."

"I don't believe you," Mad-Eye said simply.

"What do you mean you don't believe me?"

"You were snapping out an Aegis like it was nobody's business," Moody told him. "Whatever advanced training Albus gave you before he died seems to have stuck, but don't get cocky or the Death Eaters will have you the instant you let your guard down."

"Dumbledore didn't teach me anything," Harry insisted. Pointing at the werewolf he said, "I got the _Aegis Contego _shield out of a book Remus here bought me, and I've been practicing the wandmotion all summer." Everyone looked at him with varying amounts of disbelief, even _Hermione_ who _knew_ what he'd been doing during those meetings with the Headmaster. "What?"

"You flipped to the back of a textbook and just learned the hardest spell?" Hermione clarified.

"Yeah, I learned two actually. There was this binding spell I once saw Dumbledore cast, and the Aegis is something Voldemort used to defend against him when the two of them were fighting in the Ministry Atrium."

"You flipped to the back of a textbook and learned spells you saw _Dumbledore_ and _Voldemort_ cast?" Hermione clarified again.

"Yeah." Everyone was looking at him like he'd said something strange. "What?"

"Out of interest," Kingsley began evenly, "was the binding spell in question a _Binding Ribbon_, pale green and near indestructible cables of magic?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right."

"Were you aware that there are seven spells one needs to perfect before achieving the rank of Master Auror?" Kingsley asked. "Or that _I_ am still just a Senior Auror because I can only cast four of those seven, the Binding Ribbon and Aegis being among them?"

"Or that _I_ am the only Master Auror currently employed by the Ministry?" Moody finished.

"Erm-," Harry faltered. "No? I _didn't_ know any of that."

"You can't just flip to the back of the book and learn the hardest spell," Hermione shouted. "It doesn't work like that."

"Where did you even get a book with those spells in it?" Remus asked.

"I just said," Harry began, feeling a little weirded out that he probably _shouldn't_ have been able to cast that shield on his first attempt. "You and Sirius bought me a set of books the Christmas before last remember? The Aegis was in Volume nine."

Hermione raised her wand in an overhand grip and nonverbally summoned his stuff. After a few moments rooting around the unshrunken trunk he pulled out _Practical Defensive Magic_ and it opened at the correct page naturally, having been the section he'd read the most number of times.

Instructions for correct pronunciation of the incantation were above a wandmotion description which covered the remainder of the page. Half coil, splaying index and annular fingers, a Bletchley twist going into a Macintyre diagonal downwards slash, and so on. There were tips for which parts most casters tended to be sloppy on, and a number of footnotes for proper interconnectedness between words, gestures, and caster intent.

The Aegis was a piece of magic so few managed to learn, not because it required insanely high emotional intent like the Patronus Charm, but because learning it was so gods damned difficult to get right, and Hermione's mouth dropped open on reading the instructions.

Seeing this Kingsley smiled, "There's a reason people who can do an Aegis never bother using any other shields."

"Yeah?" Harry asked dazed.

"It would take some pretty powerful Dark Arts to shatter that shield in a single blow," he told the teenagers. "Or one of the top end offensive spells like a _Foe Hammer_."

"Or a _Sundering_?" Harry guessed.

"Why, can you do those as well?" Kingsley grinned.

"No. I didn't want to try learning either of those until I could get someone to demonstrate," he replied. "I had a good mental picture of what I was trying to cast having seen Voldemort raise it, and it's the same with the Binding Ribbon used by Professor Dumbledore."

"This doesn't change the fact that you can't just skip to the back of the book and learn the hardest spell," Hermione insisted.

"Well clearly I ca-," she scowled at him and he wisely trailed off. "Anyways, back to my original question. Have you any idea what that golden flame spell was?"

Everyone in the room; Alastor Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Hermione, Remus, and even Mrs. Weasley… they _all_ looked to each other, then back at him for a long while.

"You honestly expect us to believe you figured out how to cast an Aegis from only seeing it once, and learned the spell from a _book_ while locked in your muggle relatives' home?" Moody asked. "And that you really _don't_ know what this golden fire spell is because your wand _acted of its own accord_?"

…

Harry paused for several heartbeats.

…

…

"When you say it like that it does sound sorta nutty," Harry agreed with a contemplative scratch of the chin, "but yeah, that's what I'm saying."

"Okay," Moody said, obviously going along with the crazy people for simplicity's sake. "If I could feel the magic being cast I might have a better idea of what the spell is."

Harry blinked and thought about it, realising with surprise that he could actually cast it if he tried. He didn't have any idea of the incantation, nor the wandmotions necessary, nevertheless he knew that he wouldn't need them. Instead Harry felt with perfect clarity that all he had to do was point his wand and simply_ cast it_.

"Do you want me to do it again?"

','

Tendrils of bright golden fire roared into existence, flowing at a galloping race as its passing bent creation, sweeping its way across overgrown knotgrass, and connecting with an old, gnarly tree, far out around the back of the Burrow. A flaring of intense magic lasted a long moment before the spell cut off, leaving behind it nothing save a small black mound of tree stump, and a wide patch of dead grass.

"Man this spell is awesome!" Harry said aloud when he finished.

They had gotten into a similar discussion about the Trace as Ginevra and Bill earlier in the summer, and he'd discovered with no small amount of irritation that he could have been practicing magic during the summers he'd spent at Grimmauld Place or the Burrow, so long as he could have managed to get hold of a spare wand. Harry had asked to borrow someone else's wand for the demonstration, and as he was so focused on trying out the spell, he didn't really appreciate how uncomfortable the request made everybody.

Nevertheless, for expediency's sake everyone at the Burrow had allowed him to try and find a wand which matched fairly well with Harry's magic, and after about ten minutes he discovered with some surprise the best suited seemed to be Molly Weasley's; a wand constituting twelve inches of honeysuckle with a single hair of a bull Unicorn acting as its core. It was impeccably well maintained, and from the feel of it Harry got the impression the thing would be probably be a very good duellist wand, but the very idea was probably just his imagination.

"Any ideas?" Harry asked the large crowd of onlookers, tossing back Mrs. Weasley's wand which she snatched out of the air and set about inspecting, checking closely for damage.

Mad-Eye was frowning, twisting his already scarred face even more, while Kingsley, Remus, and a newly reappeared Bill tried an array of detection charms. There were a few muttered discussions where one person or another pointed out what the spell _wasn't_, but none of them had the faintest idea what the thing actually was.

"So nothing?" Harry confirmed in annoyance, "We have no idea at all?"

"Oh," Mrs. Weasley looked up, seeming to have contented herself as to the wand's intact condition. "It's called _Inanna's Breath_," she said absently, going back to peering at her wand.

The woman did not seem to notice that everybody was now looking at her with surprise, and in Moody's case outright appraisal. Harry along with pretty much everyone present shared the same incredulous look, their eyes all begging the exact same question, which after an extended moment was voiced by Bill:

"How do _you_ know that mum?"

Mrs. Weasley jumped a little and was surprised to find herself the centre of attention, before she thought back and realised she'd spoken aloud when putting a name to the magic. Getting visibly uncomfortable Mrs. Weasley seemed to sag a bit before answering, "I used to follow the Duelling Circuit when I was younger. I was in Rome during the Championship match in '64 with my Grandfather, and we were spectators when Nikolai Kemester was killed with that spell."

"Really?" several of the Weasleys all said at the same time, never having thought of their mother in such a way, obviously viewing her in a slightly different light.

"Yes really, I could see the Thestrals when I returned to Hogwarts," she answered with a roll of her eyes. "_Innana's Breath_; it's an incredibly obscure Assyrian spell, I'm surprised you know it Harry dear. I have no idea how to cast it myself but I know it is now illegal in Level One duels because it's so dangerous."

"I did Dark Magic?" Harry worriedly asked.

"No, no," the matriarch reassured him in a kind tone. "Not _Dark_, barely even borderline as I understand it," after a time she temporised her statement, "Borderline on its worst day maybe, the spell is powerful like I say, as well as dangerous, and _very_ obscure."

"Oh, well that's good," Harry finished lamely, even though somehow he sort of suspected the answer all along.

Kingsley offered to demonstrate a couple of bits of magic while they were still outside, and the majority of the people watching lost interest.

Harry gripped his holly wand as the crowd began to disperse, thinking on what happened the last time Voldemort attacked him. The wand had saved him, he knew it, even if nobody belied him, and it was with fond thoughts for his awesome new spell that he got a vague impression that _the wand itself was pleased_.

For obvious reasons Harry decided not to tell anybody this.

They already thought he was going crazy after all.

','

Lens of Sanity  
Pointless trivia; this chapter was originally written the day _Silens Cursor_ finished his monster of a story, hence the duellist's name.  
I got help from the DLP Forum to run through the mechanics of how that _"Wand Event"_ happened in canon, and there are a bunch of kinda interesting implications which I'm gonna play with. The spell is named _Inanna's Breath_ in honour of the Sumerian goddess of _casual sex _ and _superviolence_.


	7. Gracenote

','

Of Chaos and Flame  
by Lens of Sanity

','

Chapter Six: Gracenote

','

Ginevra woke in a warm comforting embrace, long supple arms snaked around her body and a pair of hands firmly attached to her chest. It was such a wonderful feeling she simply lay without thinking, enjoying the soft skin to skin contact for an extended moment. After far too short a time her mind was forced to engage, as a distinctly feminine moan from behind and into her ear snapped the fiery young woman to full awareness.

"Fleur! What the hell are you doing in my bed?" she squealed in shock, bolting to her feet with a racing heart.

Eyes fluttering open prettily in the midmorning sunlight, the French woman answered in a voice still groggy with sleep, "You came in and settled yourself beside me the night you arrived. I was quite comfortable. Did you not sleep well Ginevra?"

"Erm, yeah," she said, running her fingers through her sleep mussed hair. "Great actually."

"As did I," the platinum woman replied with a brilliant smile.

"I really got in beside you?" Ginevra asked, at the affirmative nod she finished, "I was kind of tired, sorry about that."

"Not at all Ginevra," Fleur told her, "and you have been out for at least a full twenty four hours."

"Like I say, I was tired," she repeated. "Wait. That means you crawled into bed with _me_ last night!"

"As I say, I was quite comfortable that first night," Fleur repeated with that same brilliant smile.

At that Ginevra begged a hasty retreat, ignoring strange feelings. Grabbing both her Grandmother's old wand and her favourite of the thirteen captured wands, the one she had been using since taking it from a downed Death Eater. Ginevra didn't know _why_ that specific wand seemed so right in her hands, but it was, like a third arm or something, an extension of her very being.

Despite the fact that she'd found channelling even enough magic to call the Knight Bus horrendously painful, Ginevra knew that the thing would be far better than the wand she had been using for the past five years, alive as it was with fire and the burning desire to be useful.

After an involved fully body scrubbing in a blistering shower as close to magmatic as she could charm the water, Ginevra felt clean enough to get the full story out of whoever was around the Burrow. Hygiene from the tip of a wand was sanitary enough but far from ideal, and she still had some nine day old Hag blood under her nails which Ginevra found to be totally gross.

Her mother fed her breakfast with a side order of nagging, while Bill informed her on the sly that Mad-Eye Moody was still acting his overly suspicious self, unhappy with the story she'd spun on arriving home early yesterday morning. The teenager was not overly concerned as she considered herself an absolutely incredible liar, Bill was good, the envy of the twins even on his worst day, but being the youngest in a family jam packed with boys forced her into a completely different league out of nothing save necessity.

When Hermione cast that strange diagnostic spell for instance, and she'd been forced to zig instead of zag, rolling with the memory charm idea in the hopes they'd swallow a phoney baloney story about accidental magic landing her in a coma. Ginevra had done the whole thing pretty much on the fly, before running with the classic _'little girl in distress,'_ storming out manoeuvre.

She was confident enough in her performance not to be too worried at any rate.

"…and you'll be checked over at some point today by Sturgis," her mother nattered on, as she felt Harry approaching the instant before he came in from outside.

'That was weird,' Ginevra thought suddenly, discarding the oddity the second Harry smiled at her.

"Hey," he said.

"That's it?" Ginevra said, putting on a fake pout. "Just hey, no complimenting my effervescent beauty, or greeting me with cutesy nicknames. We haven't seen each other in weeks for magic's sake!"

"Hey, bright eyes," Harry said firmly after a second's thought, going so far as to nod once in satisfaction.

She rolled her eyes and basically melted into a warm puddle of goo when he kissed her neck, burying his nose into the hair right behind her ear. There was something almost inhuman in how every synapse of her body flared at such a small gesture, racing to predictable locations, taking every ounce of restraint to stop her tearing his clothes off right there in the kitchen.

"None of that at the table you two," her damn harridan of a mother put in. "Harry dear, would you mind making sure Sturgis has a look at her when she's finished eating?"

"No problem Mrs. Weasley," he replied easily.

"I wouldn't put it past her to-," Harry cut her off with a single raised hand.

"I said it's no problem, don't worry about it."

'Okay, now _that_ was weird.' Harry never interrupted people like that, let alone the fact that he seemed to have halted _her mother_ with nothing save a simple hand gesture. Ginevra looked at him again, really got him into her field of vision and looked him up and down, and maybe checking out his body as a happy by product.

Harry had changed since she'd seen him last, his magic even felt subtly different. There was a quiet confidence to the way he held himself, a relaxation which hung about his shoulders; even leaning up against the kitchen table in an easy lounge he seemed composed. Halting Molly Weasley midsentence with a single raised hand fit him she realised, there was more power near the surface than Ginevra was used to seeing in his attitude.

Thinking on this she was hustled away to the third floor, the makeshift infirmary where Sturgis Podmore was checking on someone she didn't recognise, but who was clearly badly injured. Without her intentionally asking for it, her subconscious offered an answer Ginevra didn't know she was searching for.

'He looks like Tom.'

','

Harry was feeling like the biggest tool in creation as he watched Gin being examined by the healer. The instant he'd set eyes on the young woman's jaw dropping curves and excessively pretty face, all the determination he'd built up over the summer to simply treat her with a touch more formality, being nice but not overly familiar, the resolve had just dropped away. He kissed her after speaking two sentences, which he really _should not have done_!

Two sentences!

That's what his iron willpower was worth.

How he was expected to defeat a Dark Lord, when he couldn't even stick to his ideals long enough to break up with a girl, he'd never know. She did smell great though, and looked even better. He raked his eyes over her exaggerated curves as she lay on the table, trying to ignore the tightness in his trousers with little success.

"Are you sure Fred is going to be okay?" she asked him with a gesture to the bandaged boy, perfectly aware he was getting distracted from telling her about the sky fight above Surrey. He was having the strangest feeling Gin _liked_ him looking at her, which made absolutely no sense because everyone _knew_ girls hated that.

"His blood is kind of messed up," Harry said, answering for Sturgis Podmore who was clearly busy interpreting a parchment of results, attained from that Magical Resonance Test he'd been talking about earlier. "From what I've been told it's not so much a physical coma, as it is Fred's own magic that's holding him unconscious. I think I heard something about the countercurse being a specific Blood Boiling Curse. I don't know I'm not a healer, he'll be out for weeks but everyone seems optimistic about his chances."

"That's a relief I guess, at least he's not dead." _He could slide his hand right up the inside of her thigh, her leg was tilted at just the right angle to do it._ "Did you ever find out how the Death Eaters knew which one was the real you?"

Harry shook himself back to the present, realising he had no idea what she'd just said, and blushed lightly at being forced to ask her to repeat the question. Brushing fingers through his messy black hair he just told her the prevailing theory, being sure to explain how he was certain the Imperius Curse was involved.

"Let me get this straight," Ginevra began in a tone he didn't recognise, swinging her legs one at a time off the examination table. _Oh, she wasn't wearing panties today, that was interesting._ "You tried to _disarm_ Stan Shunpike?"

The mane of flaming hair fell low enough to brush against the backs of her thighs as she set herself, looking at him flatly, waiting in silence for a response.

"Like I say, he was under the-,"

_Smack!_

It wasn't a slap. It was a full on, hardcore right cross. Harry quite literally flew across the room, slammed against the drywall hard enough to leave a dent, sliding to the floor with a groan.

"Ginny what the f-,"

"My name is Ginevra!" she snarled, eyes of midnight blue usually so large with doe-like innocence, narrowed in unvarnished fury. Before he could bring up any anger of his own to counter, she made as if readying to thump a naked foot into his ribs, flatly stating, "He was attempting to _kill you_ Harry."

"If you think I am going to let you hit me just because you're a gir-,"

"He was trying to _kill_ _you_," she said again, neglecting the boot but clearly thinking about it. "If you're priorities are not in order I'll beat the living shit out of you myself."

Settling into a low crouch in case he needed to defend himself, and ignoring the spluttering words of Sturgis Podmore, Harry replied, "He was under the Imperius Curse, I couldn't just kill him, and a fall from that height is exactly what that would be."

"No, if someone is trying to kill you, _you_ try to kill them right back," she told him, a strange shine in her eyes giving him pause, "and you don't _know_ he was under the Imperius. The whole point of that curse is that you _can't_ know for sure."

He said nothing, just looking at her as he regained his feet, jaw throbbing in the pain of a proto-bruise.

"I will not kill innocent people."

"Even if he _was_ innocent," Ginevra said, meeting his eyes with that strange glint again, "you're more important…," there was a gracenote's pause, "Who the hell else is going to defeat Tom if you get yourself killed?"

'_That wasn't how she intended to finish the sentence.'_

The room dropped into a long, emotionally invested moment of silence. Nobody talked as he just stared into Gin's eyes, in a quiet but not entirely uncomfortable situation. Maybe a minute past but Harry couldn't have accurately guessed, eventually the healer cleared his throat, breaking whatever had just passed between them.

"You have the results?" Ginevra asked, walking over to him, unselfconsciously resting her left hand on his ass, squeezing gently.

"Yes," Sturgis said, pretending with scant success that any of this was normal behaviour. "Your _Corpus Magi_ has gone through two separate bouts of serious trauma…"

Harry and Ginevra nodded at all the right times, but the words coming from the square jawed man became long and complicated early into an explanation of the facts, and more convoluted still at his conclusions.

Harry was certain neither of them had any idea what was being said.

','

Hermione was helping with wedding preparations in the back garden, a barely concealed smile on her face which she couldn't manage to make go away. Earlier that morning she'd been talking with Harry and they were discussing plans for leaving the Burrow a day after Bill and Fleur got married, Mrs. Weasley appeared to have found out something about it and seemed to take it upon herself to try and stop them.

This was at least a little sweet of her to genuinely care so much about the two of them despite neither being one of her children, but sometimes the overbearing nature of her four letter _help_ could become a bit much for Hermione. Nevertheless it was a short conversation between Harry and Mrs. Weasley which was causing her to smile everytime she thought about it.

"May I ask why you are abandoning your education?" the Weasley matriarch had asked them.

Harry had blinked at her before taking a moment to choose his words, speaking calmly and in an even tone he'd said, "Hermione and I have a few things to do, then I'm going to kill Voldemort."

It was the bland way he'd said it which cracked her up so much, as though he'd said something like; _'Oh I'm off to rediscover the Lost City of Atlantis, don't wait up, I'll see on the first. Cheerio.'_

"I honestly cannot tell the difference," George said for the fourth time. He'd been a bit out of sorts since his brother's incapacitation, visiting several times a day, but for the most part George took his twin's inevitable recovery in stride. His explanation being that Fred was indestructible, and he'd obviously recover, like he does whenever he blows himself up in the lab. "They're both blue, it's the same!"

"It is not the same," Mrs. Weasley said patiently, "This one is _Palatinate blue_, and this one is _Persian blue_."

"Why do they have different names if they're the same colour?" George demanded, and she caught herself glancing at his crotch again. 'Damn it Hermione Granger, get a hold of yourself before someone notices your acting like a fucking Dragon in heat!'

Moving out of audible range of the colour scheme conversation she noticed Ginevra holding that awful Mundungus Fletcher upside down in the air with a spell from the Half-Blood Prince's copy of _Advanced Potion Making_. If not for the fact that the scruffy man probably deserved whatever Gin was doing to him, Hermione would probably have intervened. From the looks on the faces of the two or three others who'd noticed, she was not alone in her decision.

Mr. Weasley came out from his ramshackle home a short while later, making a beeline straight for her, a small smile gracing his lips, and a large package held in both hands.

"You got it?" Hermione asked, pleased.

"Yes," the slightly balding man answered, seeming happy to have had something to do besides wedding preparations for a change. "Perkins tells me his lumbago's gotten so bad he doesn't want to see this thing ever again, so we were in luck."

"True enough Mr. Weasley."

"You should call me Arthur, Ms. Granger," he said, eyes becoming a bit tight. "You're an adult and a friend of the family."

This was another Ron thing she realised, losing a little of her good spirits. Pushing thoughts aside she took the tent with a smile, speaking the words he wanted to hear, "Arthur then, and its Hermione _not_ Ms. Granger, my thanks to you and your friend for the gift."

'Good man,' she thought as Arthur moved off, smiling with delight. 'Straightforward but unlike my arsehole parents his heart is in the right place.'

Unlatching the sexy purple bag from her hip, Hermione set about stuffing the tent into its expanded space, once more irritated the permanent Lip Stretching Charm she'd not thought to add, made this process far more difficult than it needed to be.

"What's going on Hermione," Harry asked a few minutes later from his position lounging in the front room, seeming to be taking a break from the monotonous and never ending wedding tasks. "Do you need a hand?"

"Here, you try," she said, handing over the beaded bag. "It's the tent by the way."

"Tent?"

"Better safe than sorry," Hermione said with a shrug.

"I'm sort of amazed you managed to make this thing," he told her wrestling with the bag and tent, going mano a mano against one of life's minor irritations. "Was it much harder than that Protean Charm in fifth year?"

"About fifty times harder," she admitted, "I'll fix the expanding lip when I get some free time."

"Still," Harry said, finally getting some traction, "all those times people call you a brilliant witch, there is something to that you know."

Her mouth dropped open hearing this, and she was glad Harry was too preoccupied to notice her blush from such unexpected praise, managing an amazed stammering of, "T-thanks Harry." He waved it off as self evident, handing back the bag.

Ginevra showed up a second later and Hermione watched the two kiss briefly, wondering how soft Harry's lips must feel, and how the easily a feminine moan of pleasure came to the redhead's throat.

'Dragon, heat, Hermione Granger, down girl!' she quashed her thoughts forcefully, not about to start thinking about her friend in _that_ way.

"You know," Ginevra said, flopping down on Harry's other side, "if you guys want my help with anything I'd be happy to do what I can."

She felt Harry stiffen slightly at the same instant as Hermione did, evenly asking, "What do you mean? What kind of help?"

"Well the two of you are obviously leaving soon, right? If you need a hand getting things together I can help," she said simply. "For instance, have you packed food to go along with Perkins' old tent?"

Hermione's eyes bulged at the glaringly overlooked suggestion, and seeing it caused Ginevra to smile.

"You packed a tent but didn't think about food?" Harry teased and her face became red with mortified embarrassment. "You know what; I take back that brilliant witch comment from earlier."

"I hate you." Hermione scowled at him which made his grin widen, so she stuck out her tongue in a mature response.

"You're sort of pretty when you're embarrassed," the redhead commented.

"That's what I was going to say," agreed her stupid friend. 'She was not pretty when embarrassed! And she would hear nothing to the contrary.'

"Anyway," Ginevra got back on topic now they'd finished making fun of her. "If you want me to do a shopping trip I'll run down to Diagon Alley and pick you up some stuff on the sly. I know you two are keeping things from everyone and its fine, so you don't even have to tell me what you need the stuff for, I won't ask."

"To Diagon Alley?" Harry said, some of the humour dropping from his voice. "Like, on your own?"

"Yeah why not, I'll just tell my mother I'm sleeping again to recover my strength and it'll be easy to slip away without anyone noticing."

"Absolutely not!" Harry forbade as soon as he fully understood the proposal. "It's far too dangerous."

Ginevra got a look which she would swear was amusement, retorting, "Shopping is far too dangerous Harry? _Shopping_?"

"Yes," he said. "There is a war on in case you haven't noticed; people vanish all of the time. _You_ vanished just over a week ago, remember?"

"You are being ridiculous Harry. I was intending to go anyway to pick up some things for myself, so you may as well give me a list of whatever you need," she said, and Hermione got the impression this was the unvarnished truth, bringing with it the idea that Ginevra had done this kind of thing before more than once.

"It's better if I go anyway because let's face it, you two are muggleborns and would stand out like a sore thumb," getting a faraway look she finished, "that's not even counting the whole _Boy Who Lived_ thing."

"Wait, back up," Harry ordered, frowning a little before he continued. "What's this about me being a muggleborn? I'm not a muggleborn Gin, my parents were both magical."

"Yeah," Hermione agreed, "and it doesn't make any difference anyway, it's not like you can tell at a glance that my parents are muggles."

Ginevra blinked at the two of them.

"_Of course_ I can tell at a glance," she exploded after a moment, "you two stand out wherever you go. And anyway you _are_ kind of a muggleborn Harry, muggle_raised _maybe. Whatever it doesn't matter, if one of us had to go on an illicit shopping run I'm the one who would be in the least danger because I can blend in!"

"Hold up, you can tell I'm muggleborn just by looking at me," she said to the other girl, "we should talk about this."

"Stars and magic," Ginevra grumbled. "Is this really the time to talk about this Pureblood stuff? If you want I'll take Hermione with me to chaperone."

It took a full twenty minutes of circular argument before Harry finally agreed to sign a Gringotts note, and it was a further four hours before the girls found the opportunity to sneak out of the Burrow.

','

"Is a hundred Galleons enough Gin? I swear to the gods Harry is an idiot sometimes," Ginevra opined to her muggleborn companion as the exited the tall, while marble doors of Gringotts bank.

"He doesn't understand the conversion rate," Hermione agreed.

"Yeah, muggles use pieces of paper for currency don't they?" she mostly stated, "I remember that was a question I missed on my Muggle Studies O.W.L." Thinking of her own thirty Galleons she'd finally managed to squeeze out of Dung, and the little under ten donated by the Death Eaters, she considered herself quite rich, idly asking, "Out of interest, how many pieces of paper are forty Galleons worth Hermione?

"Well one Galleon is the equivalent of around fifty pounds more or less," she lectured, moving off into the surprisingly spartan alleyway, "so you're carrying about two thousand pounds of your own money and we've got about five thousand of Harry's."

"Sounds like a lot?"

"Yes," Hermione agreed, "although I'm surprised you have that much on hand Ms. _Weasley_."

"I work as a Polyjuice prostitute on weekends," she responded without missing a beat, disliking to hear mention of her family name. It was funny, but one of the easy ways to spot a muggleborn was that they never made comments like that in regular conversation, and here Hermione was unintentionally coming across as a Pureblood by offering a backhanded insult on accident.

The two girls cautiously stalked the Alley for the best part of two hours, collecting various items and potions ingredients from the Apothecary, and the long term travelling rations Ginevra advised they buy. The whole long and boring trip was spent with Hermione attempted to pin down her claim that muggleborns stick out like they have their blood status branded on their foreheads for all to see.

The redhead doubted she managed to convey anything much more useful than, _'it's bloody obvious,'_ by the time the two reached, with the unforgiving inevitably of gravity, their penultimate destination; the trunk store.

Chisam's Captivating Cases was the _tiniest_ of tiny shop fronts, a single door the customer was forced to step through sideways, narrow enough that fat people would be unable to enter entirely. Yet once they stepped inside a magically expanded space easily sizable enough to house three Quidditch pitches side by side, the two girls got a view of awe inspiring impossibility, thousands upon thousands of shelves stretching way off into the distance and a ceiling leaping far overhead.

"Mr. Chisam-," Hermione began, wide eyed on seeing the massive room.

"This place is bigger on the inside," he responded tiredly, finishing the comment for her using a tone which said quite plainly he'd voiced the phrase three million times before, and likely would three million times more in the future.

"Erm, yeah," Hermione said, deflating a little.

Coming to her friends aid, Ginevra opened her mouth, "We were looking for a-,"

"Magically expanded trunk like the one your Auror friend owns," Mr. Chisam also finished the sentence for her. "One with multiple, lockable compartments, which can be easily shrunk."

"Right," Gin said, similarly deflating a little.

The man just pointed, going back to his magazine. Hermione moved off to look at the display model, but Ginevra stayed to talk for a while. Before she could so much as open her mouth a man, not yet into his middle years bustled into the store, moving directly to Mr. Chisam as soon as his eyes landed on the man.

"Excuse me sir, I'm looking for a trunk I once saw my Uncle use," he began, causing the shopkeeper to sigh. "He was in the Aurors, and I was wondering if you have anything similar in stock."

"Yes sir, you could try out our display model if you would like, it has multiple compartments."

"Yes, that is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for," the customer agreed with a smile, walking off at the Mr. Chisam's gesture.

"You get that a lot?" Ginevra asked in bemusement.

"You have no idea."

"Those are popular then?"

"Everyone buys the exact same trunk," he said in dismay, casually giving her body an appreciative onceover that she missed. "If I wasn't the second richest shopkeeper in Diagon Alley because of it, I'd probably stop stocking them, if for no other reason than variety."

"Are they that good?"

"They're fine," Mr. Chisam told her, "the Fiennes and Fitz-Willis expansion Net is quite a challenging piece of magic, but I've done it a thousand times now so I've got the practice." Going back to his magazine the man muttered, "I just wish someone would buy something, _anything_, other than an FF Net trunk for a change."

Hermione returned ten minutes later.

"I've got to say Mr. Chisam that trunk is wonderful, do you have one in stock-,"

"_**NO!**_" Gin screamed. "No, _hell no_ Hermione. Buy a different one, maybe something that's just a big cave or something."

','

Leaving the store while Hermione was busy with an excited shopkeeper, Ginevra passed a muggleborn woman entering, softly overhearing the distinctive request to see an Auror model trunk, similar to one owned by her son in law. Ginevra hoped Mr. Chisam didn't kill anybody before she got back, or at least that Hermione wouldn't get too involved if the poor man finally snapped.

Slipping off down Knockturn Alley with a confident stride she made her way by Borgin and Burkes, and the dingy bar Twilight Pixie, toward the shop she'd not had a chance to visit the last time she'd been in London. Spying a man selling muggle heads out of a dark alleyway, she passed him with a dismissive glance toward her destination.

'TarKan and Blot's Second Hand,' a surprisingly clean sign declared the place, giving the young woman an optimistic feeling.

The sturdy looking shopkeeper gave her the once over as she walked in to the chiming of bells, high pitched but carrying. Ginevra nodded to him and took five minutes browsing through the detritus, there were many different things and she didn't have anything particular in mind, searching for something of interest on the off chance it'd jump out at her.

A massive bin of white canvas, filled with near identical parcels and labelled in bold black lettering, identified the contents as 'Magical Tents; 5G.' Quirking an eyebrow, and in a carrying voice she asked, "All of them are the same?"

"Surplus, leftovers from the Quidditch World Cup a couple years ago," he told her. "Can hardly give the damn things away, s'why they're so cheap."

"Meh," she replied, fishing out the cleanest looking one, with the idea that it couldn't hurt for Harry to have a spare at such a low price. Hermione would only be kept occupied for a short while so she didn't dawdle, sifting through the man's inventory with a casual, if hasty inspection. Just as she was about to leave Ginevra hit on something perfect, it would cost the last of the money she'd gotten from fencing all that gear to Fletcher, but if her eye was in the thing was ideal.

Paying the man politely she left the store at a hurried pace, two Sickles and a handful of Knuts being the only cash to her name, but she wore a happy smile on her face regardless.

"Son of a bitch!" Ginevra swore loudly, shattering her happy mood, voice echoing out in the hushed stillness of Knockturn Alley. Stomping into Borgin and Burkes with a glare so intense the Dark Artefacts dealer leaned away from her, gripping his wand as though readying to defend himself, she smiled too many teeth asking, "Mr. Burke my friend, would you be so good as to inform me of why that axe in your window is going for four hundred and twenty five Galleons?"

The man frowned, mentally switching gears, thoughts clearly going over the question.

"A new purchase, less than two weeks ago," he said. "That was the axe wielded by Warlock de Menteith during the suppression of William Wallace. Damn near priceless to the right collector, of Faé origins if the legend is to be believed." _She was going to kill Mundungus Fletcher next time she saw him._ "A steal at the price wouldn't you say?"

Ginevra didn't answer, simply glared sourly at the man, sweeping out the building without bothering to look back.

','

She'd managed to retrieve most of her cheerful disposition by the time they were back at the Burrow, family none the wiser as to the illicit shopping run, with Hermione having been too preoccupied with Mr. Chisam's enthusiasm to have noticed the twenty minute excursion down Knockturn Alley. Everyone had been around the table for a late lunch, a fairly typical affair what with Harry's birthday tomorrow and a wedding the day after.

Something weird happened with Hermione but Ginevra wasn't certain of what she'd heard. Fleur had been talking with her fiancé when the muggleborn brunette had yelled across the table in a carrying voice for the French woman to repeat something.

"I said I invited Viktor Krum and his owl said he'll be arriving on the day with the rest of our guests," Fleur had responded after a time, offering the girl a strange look. "It seems fitting to have all three Tri-Wizard Champions at my wedding, non?"

She couldn't be completely sure, muttering as Hermione had been, but Ginevra would bet the value of that Faé axe she'd heard Hermione comparing herself to a Dragon under her breath.

It had probably just been her overactive imagination or something.

Striding into her room later that night she found herself unsurprised to see a platinum blonde part Veela already in residence. Tiredly Ginevra forced herself to comment, "There _are_ spare beds you know?"

"Probably," Fleur responded simply. "What has you scowling in such a way Ginevra?"

"My mother has put a blood warded Age Line on Harry's room," she replied, flicking her crimson hair, feeling the end strands tickle her bum through the shear flannel pyjama bottoms.

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Ginevra said sighing. "I love my mother dearly, but in some ways she is quite insane. You wouldn't believe some of the stories I've heard about what _she_ got up to at my age. _Hypocrisy Central_, do you think I should change our floo address maybe?"

"Perhaps," Fleur said with a curve of her mouth. "So you and 'Arry, what ees that like?"

Ginevra flashed out a wicked smile; "Have you ever gotten the feeling he's trying to chop you in half lengthways?" Fleur licked her lips, eyes crossing in perverted thought. "I'm interested in why you're here though. Had I been in your position, I'd have kicked down the door to my fiancé's room if someone was trying to keep us apart."

"Yet you are not _kicking down 'ze door_ to 'Arry," she pointed out, deflecting rather than answer the question.

"I've picked up enough wardbreaking from Bill that I can trash anything my mother would put up, but I'm really tired and my magic is still kind of injured," the younger woman admitted. "Therefore I'm taking the healers advice and not pushing my magic too far for a while… I'll take about three hours sleep before doing it."

Fleur blinked her big pretty eyes, "I was speaking in jest."

"I wasn't," she shrugged. "Anyway, how come you're spending time with an airheaded teenage girl when you could be doing the nasty with my eldest brother right now?"

She didn't reply and Ginevra looked at the older girl once again, revaluating a number of the assumptions she'd made, some as recently as the end of last term. The French woman was a fucking _Siren_ for crying out loud, her instincts had to be wrong on this one.

"Fleur, have you and Bill _ever_-,"

"_Faire l'amour_."

"Yeah."

"Non," Fleur admitted with surprising honesty.

"With anyone?"

"Non," she said firmly, "at least not any man."

"Well…," there was a pause, "to be honest I'm kind of surprised."

"You should not be," Fleur told her. "There is a small, but very possible chance that if I were to _'go all 'ze way' _with a man so to speak, I could find myself Slave Bonded to him. It is a very low probability as I am only quarter Veela, but eet is not something I have ever been willing to risk."

"Slave Bonded?"

"Oui."

"Huh," Ginevra stated, mulling it over for a long while before finishing out loud, "that would suck."

"Oui," she said again, "besides, girls are just as much fun, non?"

The suggestive smile made Ginevra feel very, very uncomfortable.

That was all.

Just uncomfortable, _nothing else_!

','

Lens of Sanity  
Most Fics comparing Harry to Tom Riddle, put the emphasis on negative implications, but if you think about it from Gin's perspective; she sees the sixteen year old version _first_, the noseless version _second_. Also, for some reason I kinda like the idea of Fleur as a virgin bride, I'm not sure it happens often in FanFiction. Oh and I've stuck something on _Lens of Sanity DeviantART_ called _Level 20 is Awesome_  
Lastly; the magical trunk… y'know what, never mind. Up next; _Inhibitions to the wind it's wedding season_


	8. Inhibitions to the wind

','

Of Chaos and Flame  
by Lens of Sanity

','

Chapter Seven: Inhibitions to the wind it's wedding season

','

"Did they not stock one of the Auror models?" Harry asked his friend, taking a quick look at the stuff she'd purchased earlier in the day. "You know, I was thinking something along the lines of what Crouching Moody used as a prison in fourth year, with multiple compartments and stuff?"

"The littlest Weasley wouldn't let me buy it," Hermione said, "and the salesman looked so hopeful when she told him we were looking for something different, I just couldn't turn him down."

"Oh, well this is fine anyway I guess."

The two were standing side by side in the large, cave like room inside Harry's new magical trunk. Solidly constructed and resistant to moderate levels of spellfire, mahogany, with an expanded space to a volume of over two hundred cubic meters, and the thing had more specifications but his mind had glazed over upon hearing them. Overall he liked it, but couldn't quite figure out why he'd always pictured it differently in his mind.

Harry felt like his new trunk was a bit mundane, and that he'd have preferred something a little special for a change, something maybe a little unique which wouldn't be found in just _any_ wizard's possession.

"Yeah," Hermione agreed wholeheartedly. "Well it's been a long day and I'm knackered, so if you don't mind I'm off to bed. I'll probably look all bleary eyed and splotchy in any birthday photographs tomorrow."

"Yeah right," he responded doubtfully, climbing up the steep flight of stairs to open the lid for her, "You'd look great wearing an empty potato sack, fresh from wrestling in mud."

He smiled at Hermione's spluttering and thought he heard something about smacking him for being an idiot, or maybe about his ass or something, Harry wasn't sure he wanted all the details really. They parted to their respective rooms and Harry trudged his way up five flights of stairs, wooden steps creaking with his weight on every other footfall.

Once in the small fifth floor room he'd last shared with his fallen friend, Harry carefully stripped down, being extra cautious of his recently wounded right shoulder, wincing slightly as he tested the still healing injury with a wary roll. He must have been far more tired than he'd originally believed because the second his head hit the pillow it was like his switch was flipped to _off_, dropping his mind to the black of deep sleep as easy as a light going out.

Less than an instant later he woke to the greatest feeling he'd ever experienced, perfect lips of spice and cinnamon meshing with his, and a warm naked body wrapped around his own, soft and firm in the most interesting of combinations. His hands came up the woman's bare back, lightly brushing fingertips over feminine curves until they reached the base of her neck, tangling silky hair in one hand.

Opening his eyes emerald green met midnight blue and she smiled a gorgeous sensual smile.

"Harry birthday Mr. Potter," Gin said formally after he kissed her again.

"Happy, me, what?" he responded, mind not yet having fully reengaged.

"You know," she said thoughtful. "I'm certain most people have to use breath freshening charms before their kisses taste so good."

Harry half rolled his eyes, tightening his grip in her hair the way she enjoyed, Gin hissed a little and he forced their lips back together for another long, blissful moment. Feeling his body respond to her touch he began positioning himself for a repeat of their nights together at the end of last term, but she pulled back, slightly resistant to his advance.

Shooting the crimson beauty a look of confusion Ginevra responded by trailing a few short nips down his neck, causing a shudder. As her mouth and hands trailed onto his chest Harry just lay back and enjoyed the sensations, but when she began exploring lower his eyes flew open upon fully registering her destination.

"G-Gin-, what are yo-,"

"Just relax Harry," she interrupted with a look so intense it was almost frightening, "I told you I wanted to wish you a happy birthday."

He'd been wrong when he woke up, kissing the young woman hadn't been anywhere _close_ to the greatest sensation he'd ever experienced.

','

"I swear by the gods and magic, I almost drowned," the redhead whispered in his ear at breakfast.

He was sitting at the table, beat red with embarrassment, and Molly Weasley was _in the fucking room_! Harry couldn't imagine what in the hell was wrong with her, and all the attempts to get Gin to stop taking altogether were completely ignored.

"Please," he begged in a quiet hiss, trying to bury himself in his eggs.

"Do you not spend any extra time in the shower when you're at your Aunt and Uncle's place?" Gin asked him _really loudly_. "Merlin save me but that cannot be normal! Were you like saving up for a big finish or something?"

Mrs. Weasley looked at them over her shoulder and Harry had to forcefully remind himself that Gin's mother _wasn't_ a Legilimens.

"I mean, there are probably draft horses who would be proud of such a achievement."

Mr. Weasley came into the room a second later and wished him a happy birthday, for which Harry thanked him, all the while wondering whether it had been worth it.

"I'm going to have to skip breakfast you know," she said the nanosecond her father was _maybe_ out of earshot. "Probably lunch too now that I think about it, I hope you're proud of yourself."

"Would you please stop?" Perhaps he'd be able to cash in a Life Debt or something and he could get her to stop.

"That's not what you said earlier toda-,"

"Oh for the love of-, hey Hermione! Good morning, care to sit down to breakfast in between me and Gin?"

Harry realised his mistake the second after it was too late, by the mischievous look which flashed across the redhead's features. Sat trapped there, wall on one side, best friend in the middle, and shameless witch pinning him down, he blushed harder, coming to an unfortunate conclusion.

Despite the taunting, it _had_ been totally worth it.

The stunning woman caught his flickering smile.

','

"Scrimgeour is coming," spoke a bright silver weasel, standing on its hind legs in the centre of the room.

"Fantastic," Harry said sarcastically. "It's not like I was enjoying my birthday for the first time since I turned one year old."

"Do you want me to set the goat fucking, dickless sack of shit on fire?" Ginevra voiced her surprisingly vicious offer from a position seated between his legs, her body a comfortably warming presence with easy access to any of her exposed skin.

"Erm-," he began, tilting her head around so he could look her in the eyes, "that's a lot more filthy and violent than I was expecting?"

"Filthy and violent?" she asked in a sweet voice. "Now _there's_ an image I can live with. I sound like the goddess for whom your new favourite spell is named."

Her hips wiggled, firm bum rubbing against him, and she pointedly placed the palm of one of his hands on her breast. Harry tried to glare at her, or do something other than laugh while getting turned on again. Harry quite obviously failed, and it was to this scene that the current Minister of Magic, former Head of the Auror Office, and all round useless jackass Rufus Scrimgeour walked.

The modest party had been calming down after lunch, but Harry had not been exaggerating when he said it was the most enjoyable celebration of his birth he could remember. The Delacour's had arrived earlier in the morning, and he'd been reintroduced to mini-Fleur who seemed to be quite enamoured with him for a girl barely eleven years old. Gin had broken out some of the truly awful poetry she'd written about the _Boy Who Lived_, and the two girls had taken turns attempting to serenade him.

It'd been damn near impossible to keep a straight face, especially because Gin was hamming it up like he couldn't believe.

Hagrid and Remus had shown up, and all the guests shared a slice of this gigantic Snitch shaped cake one of the Weasley's found for him. Harry had been given a few small gifts from various people, and there had been one slightly uncomfortable moment when Mr. and Mrs. Weasley forced him to take a wizard watch made of sterling silver. Apparently it was the traditional gift when a magical became _of age_, and although he couldn't use the thing's twelve hands to tell time _yet_, he'd accepted it graciously enough once they'd told him it was once his first friend's most valuable possession.

At the time he'd decided to keep it as a reminder to find and kill the guy who'd killed him.

The party quieted down, and his fiery haired girlfriend talked him into playing a game which involved a fiery tasting beverage, her lips, and trading alcoholic shots with their tongues.

This all went toward explaining why Harry was less than charitable toward the politician, as the shaggy blond man walked into the room while he was cupping an impressively firm breast in one hand, and had his swollen length pressed between the curves of a gorgeous woman's ass.

"Good evening to you Minister Scrimgeour, it's good to see you got the invitation I owled you," Harry deadpanned, not seeming to be all that concerned with moving from his comfortable position.

"Harry Potter," he replied evenly, looking at the sprawled position with disapproval and suppressing a glare at the implied disrespect. Looking over the woman between his legs he asked, "And you would be?"

"His sex slave."

"My girlfriend," they both answered at the same time.

"Ginevra Weasley, Minister," she spoke her name over the top of Harry's double take.

"Arthur's youngest is a girl?" Scrimgeour said with surprise, and he thought he heard a mutter of, "Line of Mortis be damned."

Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean Harry didn't know, but its effect on Gin was a noticeable stiffening of her body, and he didn't like it, stating, "What do you want Scrimgeour, seeing you here has already ruined my day enough, please get on with it."

"You would be wise to show more respect boy," the man snarled. "I could have you brought in on charges without so much as a single floo call."

"For what? Side-along apparating a half Giant before Voldemort killed him?" Harry laughed incredulously, "I didn't know it at the time, but you'll have to search long and hard to find someone powerful enough to pull _that_ off without splinching both people to death."

"Underage magic is underage magic, there are precedents, and that discounts Pius Thicknesse's ridiculous laws."

"Kiss my arse. You're not a Death Eater and sometimes you're not an idiot, so I doubt you've come all the way here to arrest me. What do you want?"

Scrimgeour growled a few muttered curses, visibly stifling his frustration and outrage, putting a scroll of thick parchment between them. After a few calming breaths the Minister went on, "This would be so much simpler if you would work with me and the Ministry as a whole. Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters are a problem for us all, if we work together and _The Chosen One_ is seen to be preparing and fighting the good fight, magicals all over Britain will come to our aid."

Harry didn't interrupt the man's speech.

"We need your help," he finished after a long moment, impassioned, truly seeming to believe his words.

"Answer me something Minister," Harry said after a contemplative second.

"Very well."

"Do you believe I really am the Chosen One?"

He paused to scratch his chin before answering. "My belief has not changed since the first time we met; to the wizarding community at large, it is simply a matter of perception. Whether you are or you are not is irrelevant, it's what people believe that's important."

"You didn't answer the question."

"No."

"No?"

"No I don't believe you are really a prophesised saviour of the world."

Harry smiled at him then, possibly the first time he'd ever smiled at the man, and it was an open, honest grin of pure childlike satisfaction.

"Thank god for that," he said, noticing as he did so that his hand was still firmly attached to his girlfriend's chest. "I mean honestly, if you were waiting around for a big damn hero to come save your organisation's collective arse, you'd be the worst Minister of Magic _ever_!"

"So you'll help?" Scrimgeour asked, clearly taken aback by the teenager's response.

"Oh, hell no."

"Why?" the Minister pleaded, honest incomprehension on his face.

"I have no loyalty to the Ministry," Harry bluntly stated. "Far too many of you have tried to use me, intimidate, imprison, and outright _torture me_. The Ministry has no right to ask anything of me, for the love of god man you idiots painted me as an unstable menace for a whole year!"

"That was Fudge-,"

"That was the government," Harry interrupted. "Hermione once told me that elected office is more than one person, although she actually said _'The Presidency is bigger than one man'_ and was talking about the muggles in America at the time."

"I see," Scrimgeour said, as though he really did for the first time. "You hold no loyalty for anything save Dumbledore's memory." Harry's face must have twitched or made some reaction because the Minister got a knowing look, "Ah, and I see that last is on the wane."

"Shut up, no it's not!" he snapped.

The knowing look didn't fade, and after an extended moment he reached out a hand roughened with scars and calluses, grasping the heavy scroll and parchment.

"You should send for Miss Granger. The real reason I came here was to read the Last Will and Testament of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore…"

','

Headmaster Dumbledore had been a lunatic, Hermione decided, it wasn't obfuscation as most people assumed when he was alive, the guy was an absolutely brain case. First of all, he must have _known_ the Ministry would not just hand over an ancient Goblin forged blade he didn't even own, to someone who only had a tenuous claim on it themselves.

Although she'd admit to not having looked into legal precedent, so there was every chance the illogical nature of wizarding culture meant that Harry really _did_ have every right to the sword. Nevertheless Dumbledore should have known it wouldn't reach him. Under normal circumstances she would have probably assumed the man had some kind of grand plan, which involved them getting hold of the presumably important magical sword, but under _these_ circumstances she was beginning to have serious doubts.

Fairytales.

Now really, fairytales?

It wasn't as though they were being asked to fight and end a war here or anything, and Hermione had been offered a book of children's stories to help them do it. And what other magical object of greatest import had Harry been oh so generously gifted; a used Snitch with a vague and unhelpfully cryptic message written on the casing.

Fan-_bloody_-tastic.

It also didn't help matters any as far as Hermione was concerned, that absolutely everyone who was staying at the Burrow were acting like god damned rabbits, everyone _except her_! She'd been forced to go relieve herself manually after being made to sit through that breakfast conversation with Harry and Gin earlier in the day, so being offered a useless fucking book of light forsaken fairytales left the bushy haired woman with an attitude like she was about to bite something.

Stomping along the third floor corridor, she was stopped in her tracks by the beautiful French woman exiting the bathroom.

"You scowl like Ginevra," she said with an amused and accented voice. "Miss Granger is it not?"

Smoothing her features with a slight effort of will, Hermione responded, "Did I not introduce myself when you arrived at the Burrow?"

"Non," Fleur laughed, a musical sound, like air and chiming bells.

'Bloody woman, even her laugh sounds like it's coming from a goddess' lips,' she thought annoyed. "I am sorry, Hermione Granger, and I wasn't scowling at you so sorry about that too."

"Not at all," Fleur waved it off.

"Nervous about the wedding?" Hermione asked, "In fact, should you not be out doing something crazy with your friends from Beuxbatons, as it's your last night as a free woman."

"As to that," she laughed that laugh again, "I cannot speak. Vows of Silence were exchanged on my last day in France."

Hermione's mind fell into neutral gear, processing through just what depths of sexual depravity would cause a part Veela to think about taking a Vow of Silence, and on returning to the present her irritable mood was back in full force once again.

"I'm sorry Fleur my mind was elsewhere, what did you say?" Hermione asked, realising she'd just been looking at the woman's mouth without hearing any of the words.

"I said I was feeling just a _l_ee_tle_ nervous," Fleur admitted, "I am getting married tomorrow after all, and I dare not go to maman with 'zis feeling as she was so put out with me marrying an Englishman at all."

"Oh," Hermione said, feeling a touch ashamed that other people were going through their own issues and it hadn't occurred to her, thanks to her current state. "Well if you need to talk to someone?"

"You would do 'zat for me?"

"You said none of your friends are here," Hermione admitted. "If you think I could help?"

The platinum blonde woman offered her a wide, dazzling smile, leading her by the hand down a flight of stairs.

','

"Why did you introduce yourself as my sex slave?" Harry asked as soon as they were alone, right after Scrimgeour left and Hermione scuttled off to read her new book of fairytales.

"I had a massive cock digging into my back," the redhead responded blandly. "My mind was suitably distracted thank you very much."

"Massive?" he couldn't stop himself from blurting.

"All meaty and throbbing," she agreed.

There was a small beat of silence.

"You know, the lake looks beautiful at this time of the year…"

It was approaching midnight when the two teenagers lay still, lit by the waning crescent moon, on the shore of the Burrow's small lake. Harry didn't remember ever feeling so relaxed or… _alive_, ever before. Yes, he was tired from the long day, and more than a little bruised for obvious reasons, but overall he'd never felt so good in living memory.

Contented maybe.

Twitching his wand Harry checked the repelling spell, as well as reapplying warming and cushioning charms to the area, maintaining the comfortable atmosphere for a while longer. Slipping back into his clothes he saw from the corner of his eye, the young woman was watching him quite openly as he dressed. Despite everything they'd been doing together recently, he got kind of embarrassed at this frank appraisal, a slight flush rising in his cheeks.

He pretended to ignore her but after a moment Harry realised she wasn't just looking at him, her mind was working, eyes glittering in reflection.

"What are you thinking about?" he heard himself asking.

"You."

'Unsurprising I guess,' he thought, instead voicing, "More specifically?"

"You really have no idea who you are, do you?" Gin asked him instead.

"I'm Harry Potter," he answered frowning.

"Yes you are. But I don't think you understand what _that_ means either."

"What it means? Gin I'm just a normal guy, I'm famous for something my mother did when I was a child, but other than that I'm nothing special."

"Just another guy off the street?" she asked curiously, setting about dressing herself, long limbs stretching as her back arched like a dancer.

"Yeah, just another guy off the street," Harry agreed, watching as her muscles grew taut.

"Who fights Dragons from the back of a broomstick?"

To this Harry said nothing.

"Kills Basilisks, punches out Dark Lords, and tells the British Minister of Magic to _'kiss my arse'_ right to his face?"

"I have a lot of help when these things happen," he said after a while, "and there is always something stupid which comes out of nowhere to save me when Voldemort is involved."

Ginevra nodded her head at this, mane of crimson hair fanning out, before leaning back in a limb splaying laze. "That is true enough in part I suppose, however you are dead wrong when it comes to Tom."

"Gin, my wand-," he stopped when she raised her hand, intimating that she was going somewhere with this.

"Do you remember the interview you gave to the Quibbler about eighteen months ago?" she asked. "Of course you do, stupid question. Anyway you outlined the events which led to Tom regaining a body using a ritual of blood and bone."

"Okay, and I barely escaped because my holly wand had a brother core to that of Voldemort's yew," Harry pointed out. "They wouldn't work properly against one another, and I got away. It was one of those stupid random things that always happens that I have no control over. You're kind of proving my point here."

"That's what I thought, you really have no idea who you are," she repeated her earlier words. "It's only recently that I've had the wherewithal to notice that you don't know it yourself. Put simply the story you told to the Quibbler is completely unbelievable, only _you_ don't understand _**why**_ what you were telling people was so hard to accept." Gin pointed one finger at him, "Even now you're just looking at me stupidly."

"What are you on about? Spell it out for me please."

Harry watched as the redheaded girl became frustrated, attempting to wrangle her thoughts into a workable order, verbalise something too complex to put into simple words. Eventually she seemingly gave it up as a bad job, and voice coming out in a strange cadence, quoted;

"_He saw beneath the skin and bone, a beating heart, a will of stone." _

Ginevra was then silent for several seconds, apparently content in that she'd answered his question, fully making her point and that he should somehow be able to completely divine what she was getting at. A moment stretched before the Pureblood girl realised something with surprise; "You don't recognise it?"

"No."

"It's from Dark Father," she hinted.

"Oh," Harry said, "what's that?"

"You're such a barbarian, how can you _not_ recognise it?" Gin stated to the Ether with a shake of the head. Moving back over to him she dragging his arms around her, seating herself comfortably between his legs. "Dark Father is an Epic which should only be performed in High Chant because, well frankly in my opinion people who do otherwise deserve to be stabbed."

"It's a wizard play?"

"Yeah," she agreed, "maybe more of a long poem. It's about the Rise and Fall of a partially fictional Dark Lord and is set during the fifteenth century. The central character was born a simple man, reigned in Eastern Europe for a time, and eventually died during the Fall of Constantinople."

"Doesn't sound particularly pleasant," Harry said, running the pads of his fingers over her skin with a featherlight touch.

"No, the story is quite beautiful," she insisted, shuddering at the unnatural pulse of raw pleasure the contact drew from her. "It's a tale of how a good man can change the world, and how everything forever rests on the knife edge of a single wand."

"Maybe you can take me to see it performed someday," Harry suggested, ignoring the uncomfortable emotions of what he was intending to do tomorrow. "What does this have to do with me though?"

At this Ginevra was quiet, and he couldn't help get the impression she was repressing similar thoughts as he. Kissing her neck again, Harry repeated the question.

"Well, it's about duelling isn't it?"

Harry groaned loudly, "What? You're honestly going off on a _third_ tangent?"

"If you weren't a friggin' uncultured muggleborn I wouldn't have to," she muttered to herself. "Yes, a third tangent it is. You're the one who asked me what I was thinking about."

"At the time I didn't know I'd be required to take a philosophy course," Harry pointed out, "and forgive me if I didn't appreciate that you were such a powerhouse in the brainpan." He couldn't see the pleased smile, but it was there as he nibbled on her ear for a time, hoping she wasn't getting geared up for another run at his bruised and battered body. "So, duelling?"

"Uh-huh, duelling good."

"Focus," he barked.

"Don' wanna." When he halted all ministrations Gin got her head back in the game. "Right, yeah, duelling. You know how in the old days witches and wizards used to settle disputes by allowing magic itself to decide the outcome?"

"They did?"

"Yes little mudblood they did," disregarding his amused protestations she went on. "The most common method which was used to allow magic to act as an arbiter was to duel, a fair fight between one magical and another, with wands in hand. One person would pit their magic and will against the other, and the victor of the duel would be declared winner of the dispute."

"And this segue into a history lesson has some bearing on all the garbled and confusing other things you've been talking about since I foolishly asked what you were thinking about?" Ginevra growled, a bass rumble which came across as somehow animalistic, predatory. "You're not allowed to kill me on my birthday," he pointed out.

"It's after midnight, so it's not your birthday anymore."

"I made you have an orgasm less than half an hour ago?"

"I was faking," Gin assured him. He raised an eyebrow she couldn't see but could apparently sense. "Fine," she acquiesced, "I'll not kill you."

"So what's all this got to do with me, and Voldemort, and duelling, and people not believing me about the rebirth during most of my fifth year?"

"You don't understand who you are," she said for a third time. "Think about it. People settled disputes using duels, but what you got into with Tom back in his father's Graveyard was so much _more in line_ with the spirit of the concept; one person fighting another, with no fancy spells, or tricks of training and circumstance. It was raw willpower and you stood there and _beat him_, on unfriendly ground no less, your will overcame his. I don't think I've ever heard of something so profound."

"And you're saying nobody believed me because I was claiming I didn't so much as escape Voldemort-,"

"…as you did _defeat_ him," Gin finished for him. "You were walking around claiming you defeated Lord _bleeding_ Voldemort at the age of fourteen, by raw force of will alone."

"Wow," Harry said after a long moment's contemplation.

"You can kind of see why everyone thought you were either an insane maniac, or a lying child who had let their reputation go to their head."

"Yeah," he admitted. "Their reaction kind of makes a bit more sense when you put it like that."

"Uh-huh."

"But you believed me didn't you?"

"No I didn't," she confessed. "I, and most likely all those who stood by you and accepted your story, did so because they believed the _Boy Who Lived_ could have pulled it off. At the time I was still buying into the legend, now I know you pulled it off because it's you; you are Harry Potter."

"And that's different?"

"_He saw beneath the skin and bone, a beating heart, a will of stone," _Gin quoted again. "That's you. Just like in Dark Father, you can do whatever you want; you are the man who decides the fate of the world, the single wand, the knife edge on which everything forever rests."

"I-I," Harry didn't know what to say to that, if there _was_ anything he could say to it even.

"It was Dumbledore for more than half a century, and at this moment in history the honour, or maybe the duty has fallen to you," she finished. "Now, I've been talking for a long time, perhaps I could be awarded another chance at playing wand sheath?"

In depth magical and metaphysical arguments gave way to more immediate concerns, and Harry whined:

"Can't we just cuddle I'm all sore and bruised?"

"Suck it up Harry you're the saviour of the world."

','

'Okay Hermione Granger, last night you had sex with a Veela,' she thought, looking at her face in the mirror, wondering idly if she should look different now or something. 'You probably shouldn't have done that, no matter how much fun it may or may not have been at the time.'

She showered, brushed teeth, double and triple checked her quick escape supplies, dressed in formal clothes appropriate for a wedding, checked her quick escape supplies again, then moved back to the bathroom and looked herself in the mirror again.

'Yep, Hermione Granger, you _still_ had sex with a Veela last night,' she thought to her reflection, 'and you _still_ probably shouldn't have done that. You're a lesbian now. Having sex with a Veela, no matter how much fun it may or may not have been at the time, doing it even once makes you a lesbian!'

It was okay, she really didn't need to freak out about something like that, all Hermione had to do was the same thing she always did when confronted by something huge. She just had to sit down and come up with a list of pros and cons, possibly do some research in the library, and then calmly work through all the implications before coming to an informed decision.

'Right then, so con; she'd had sex with a Veela last night, and was therefore now a lesbian,' Hermione ran through the thought dispassionately. 'Pro; if she was going to suddenly become a lesbian, at least the woman who'd made her do it was Tri-Wizard Champion Fleur _bloody_ Delacour! How brilliant was _that_!'

'Con, she'd never be able to talk to her parents again because they were a bunch of bigoted morons,' Hermione thought. 'Wait, that not a con it's a pro, things are looking up. Another pro, Fleur is getting married today so she wouldn't be forced to do anything like that ever again. Hmm,' her mind threw up an annoying red flag, halting her progress. 'Why does that feel like a con all or a sudden?'

'Wait, again, another pro; she and Harry were leaving tonight or tomorrow morning and were probably going to get killed some short time afterwards. So she wouldn't have to think about it for too long in any case!' she paused again, 'Yeah okay, that one is probably a con is disguise.'

There was a knock on the bathroom door and someone was asking what was taking her so long in there. Hermione realised with annoyance that she'd be forced to talk to people and things today, and everyone in the Burrow would likely notice if she hid in the bathroom all day.

The person knocked again.

'Curses!'

','

"Hey Harry, good morning," Gin said brightly, easing her way into his room. "I meant to give you this yesterday."

Tossing him a heavy, paper wrapped package, Harry caught it in his offhand, saving his still injured shoulder. "What's this?" he asked, testing its weight a little before placing it on his bed.

"Your birthday present."

"What? I thought you already gave me a birthday present?" Harry said, smiling and blushing a bit at yesterday's memorable wakeup call.

"What are you talking about," she asked with slightly knitted brows, "I think I'd remember giving you-," Gin stopped, noting the look on his face. "No Harry."

"No?"

"The only people who can give kisses as birthday presents work in a particular industry and are most commonly referred to as whores."

"I'm not calling you a-," he exploded with eyes wide.

"Not that I have anything against such a line of work you understand," she ignored him, "but with my family name going for me, I hope you don't mind my buying you a real gift?"

"I don't think of you as if I can _buy_-,"

"Harry please shut up and open your present," Ginevra interrupted again. "Besides it's not like I didn't enjoy doing it for Merlin's sake."

Harry was meekly untying the string holding the paper in place when her words hit him full in the face.

"What do you mean you enjoyed doing it?" Harry asked in disbelief. She gave him another one of those looks which stated he was an idiot without needing to use words. "Everyone knows girls hate-,"

"Oh for the love of-. Is this a muggle thing or something?" she demanded. "It feels good making someone else feel good, what's the big deal?"

"I-I, I guess I've never thought about it like that," he trailed off. "I'll be opening my present now."

Harry stopped half way through tearing apart the paper wrapping, "Would you like me to return the favour?"

"No," Gin answered bluntly.

"Really?"

"Not so long as you're thinking of it like it's a favour."

"Right," he said, looking down. "Gin would you mind if I-,"

"Some other time maybe," she interrupted a fourth time. "We have a wedding to get ready for. Besides, I've never met anyone who's offered and I'd like to properly enjoy my first time."

"Okay."

He unwrapped his birthday present, holding it up in front of him, examining the thing closely.

"This must have cost a fortune."

"Yes and no," Ginevra said with a stunning smile, "it's new but I bought it from a second hand store so it was a surprisingly good deal."

"Wow."

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah, thank you."

"You are welcome Harry."

He looked at the woman properly for the first time right then, taking her in from tiptoes to the hair on her head in a long visual caress, burning the details into his memory to the best of his ability.

"Is there a reason you're completely naked?"

','

It was just before three in the afternoon and Hermione had finally gotten herself together enough to be outside a great white marquee near the orchard. She was smiling, helping with the proceedings, smiling, escorting the guests to their seats with the help of George, and most of all smiling. She wasn't sure how fake the smile looked, or even if it _was_ a fake smile at all.

The swarm of waiters wearing white robes were bustling about, and the band was setting up. Veela cousins were beginning to arrive and Hermione was subtly avoiding them to the best of her ability, shunning her first urge to practice her conversational French at the rare opportunity to use it.

After a few minutes bustling around she caught sight of Harry, striding toward her with all the newfound self confidence he'd been displaying of late. He looked taller than he normally did, bright green eyes flashing with the same intensity she was getting used to seeing, and wearing of all things an expensive looking long brown coat, flowing down to below his knees.

"Nice coat," her voice said on its own.

"Yeah."

"What happened to the Polyjuice plan?"

"Screw it," Harry replied negligently. "Everyone knows I'm going to be here anyway, it's not like Voldemort is going to topple the Ministry today."

"Of course not," Hermione shook her head at the ridiculous statement. "He could attack directly though, if someone tells him you are definitely present at this wedding."

"I guess, but I think you're arguing out of habit rather than because you actually believe what you're saying."

'Hmm, Harry seems to be more on the ball today than he usually is,' the brunette thought to herself, not bothering to reply.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Fine," she said quickly, "why wouldn't I be alright?"

"I dunno, you look kind of worried, but you're smiling like someone's hit you with a Cheering Charm at the same time."

'_Way _too on the ball!' Hermione almost panicked, but was saved by a familiar cry of, "Wotcher," from a cyan haired Tonks on the arm of a smiling Remus Lupin.

"Hello Harry, nice coat."

"Yeah," Harry replied in the exact same tone he'd used when she'd said the same thing.

"Wasn't there supposed to be some plan involving Polyjuice potion or something?" Tonks asked.

She was about to be forced to undergo the same conversation for a second time, when Hermione's thoughts were interrupted by a _very_ familiar voice, a deep baritone she remembered fondly from times spent together when she'd been younger, and more innocent.

"Viktor?" she shrieked, spinning around.

_'This is a god sent opportunity to get my heterosexuality on!'_

','

"Merlin she is going to ride him like a cheap broomstick," Gin commented from her seat beside him, nodding in the direction of the dance floor, to where Hermione was trying to subtly escape the crowd for some privacy. Harry found that he couldn't exactly disagree with the redhead's conclusions either. "Is that rumour about her fetish for Quidditch players true?"

"Hermione doesn't even like Quidditch," he told her.

"Yeah but; Ron, McLaggen, You, Victor Krum," Gin counted off. "And I know she spent a lot of her time mooning over Diggory like every other girl in the Castle."

"Cedric, really?" Harry asked, pointedly ignoring that she'd counted _him_ in the imaginary list.

"Yeah."

"Huh, you learn something new every day," he said after mulling over the idea in his head. "And yes there _is_ something to that particular rumour."

"Come on then, spill." Gin prodded him a few times with one of her fingers. "You get to be an honorary girl for the remainder of this gossip conversation."

"How very kind of you to offer such a prestigious gift," he said sarcastically. "I'm saying nothing, but you might find it profitable to check out her personal copy of _Hogwarts; A History_ if you ever get the chance."

"I'll do that."

Harry dragged her onto the dance floor on a whim, discovering with no small amount of surprise that his legs seemed to go where he wanted them to, for the most part anyway. He'd never pass for a professional dancer, but it seemed he was relaxed enough around someone he'd been so intimate with, that he was confident enough to manipulate her body through steps of a dance.

"You know," Gin whispered from the closeness of their embrace, "I'm not wearing any panties,"

"In a dress _that_ short?"

"Quick and easy access," was her immediate reply. "Remember what we talked about this morning, we're breaking up as soon as you leave so I can do my thing at Hogwarts."

"Okay, but the dress is _damn short_."

"I want to get laid as many times as possible before you disappear, thank you very much."

"Quick and easy access you say?"

','

Three sex saturated teenagers sat nursing their drinks, listening with disinterest as Elphias Doge and Muriel Weasley argued about the new book which had recently been published by Rita Skeeter. Ginevra's sternum and ribs were aching where the table's edge had been digging into them earlier, and she didn't miss the halfway glazed look she saw in Hermione's eyes. Harry seemed to be the most attentive to the conversation, perking up on hearing of the Ariana illness vs. Squibness debate, but even he was still sitting a bit tenderly, shifting his weight from time to time.

"All I'm saying is that it what you _choose to believe_ has absolutely no bearing on what is actually _true_," the black haired man interjected forcefully.

"Exactly," Aunt Muriel agreed enthusiastically, "and the fact remains that it was Aberforth who broke his brother's nose. What's even more surprising is the man obviously _knew_ he deserved it, because Albus never healed his nose afterwards."

"Harry my boy-," Mr. Doge went on almost pleadingly, "Let nothing tarnish your memories of Albus Dumbledore."

It was almost a relief when a silver Lynx Patronus coalesced in the centre on the marquee, speaking in the bass rumble of Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice:

"_The Ministry has fallen. Most of Scrimgeour's staff is dead. Get out. They are coming!"_

','

Lens of Sanity  
Dark Father by darwick is decent enough, though I only stole the title and my favourite two lines, and JK Pratchett's story has something awesome I'm stealing too  
Anyone who believes Canon!Harry is weak and incapable, what do you think about the comparison of _Potter vs. Voldemort _in BK4(GoF) with _Dresden vs. Duke Ortega _in BK5(DM)?


	9. In This Place

','

_"Lens of Sanity: straddling the line between being idiotically terrible and totally awesome since 2010" – Saot_

','

Of Chaos and Flame  
by Lens of Sanity

','

Chapter Eight: In This Place

','

It was an instant transformation, with a feeling of raw fire coursing through his veins Harry was jolted to full awareness, wand appearing miraculously in his hand, words of power coming to his lips. In the chaos of wedding guests rushing in all directions, grabbing loved ones, fleeing from the marquee and Apparating away with thunderous cracks, Harry still managed to spot the column of masked figures appearing amongst the others.

"_Evinxi Necto!" _he roared the spell, sending long whips of pale green ropes toward the attackers, hogtieing two of them in midair with a complex tangle of nigh unbreakable magic. Just like when he'd been attacked by those Death Eaters on the back of Hagrid's motorbike, he didn't take the moment needed to think, and so wasn't surprised that his spell had worked the first time. Instead he simply snapped out a trio of Stunning Spells into the mob of dark cloaks without missing a beat.

"Harry we've got to get out of here," he heard Hermione's unflustered but insistent voice cry out from behind him. Tonks and Remus were both engaging Death Eaters from the far side, and Harry realised in the adrenalin fuelled haze that Hermione was right, they _couldn't_ stay to help, as they endangered the Burrow all the more by their mere presence. He barked out a final Stunner, fearful of using something more dangerous where he might hit friend or ally in the crossfire.

Before Harry could spin to her and voice his agreement to withdraw, he felt a strong hand gripping the back of his coat, and then the crushing sensation of being forcibly Apparated against his will. He barely had the wherewithal to stop fighting Hermione before his resistance would tear them both apart. As soon as it began it ended, with Harry finding himself suddenly in the middle of a busy street, surrounded by what were quite plainly muggles.

"By your ancestors' troll humping, goat brained, muggle raping bloodline," Ginevra snarled from the far side. "What the hell was that Hermione?"

"Ow," the girl in question said weakly, falling to the ground and bruising her knees.

Harry noticed his two companions were in considerably worse shape than he, both rubbing at their temples, making sure all their limbs were still attached. Whatever unpleasantness they were experiencing had probably been his fault Harry realised in that moment, caused by his automatic fighting of the unexpected sensation. As the embarrassment steadily began to overtake him, the adrenaline spike similarly loosed its hold on him.

"Erm-," he said, trailing off at the twin baleful glares. "That was an Apparition Gin…," then a thought struck him so he rolled with it. "Yes an Apparition, and a quite successful one too, I might add. Most people tend to vomit the first time."

The girls both looked at each other and then back at him.

"If you're quoting Dumbledore at me I'm going to kick your ass," Ginevra eventually replied.

"I think I'll help," Hermione supplied.

"Okay," Harry said weakly. "I'm sorry, but it was instinct… Wait a minute, you forcibly side-along Apparated both yourself and two others. That's kind of badass now that I think about it."

"Where are we anyway, those are muggles. Hold on, we Apparated in front of muggles? That's bad!" the redhead said all of this quickly, her sprawled position hiking her dress up so as to be displaying her pantylessness to the world. Either she hadn't noticed noticing this, or perhaps had and not cared in the least that she was beginning to draw a sizeable crowd. "Actually, on reflection that's a stupid question. More importantly I want to know why in the hells you brought _me_ Hermione, wasn't I supposed to be left behind when you guys vanished on this mysterious expedition?"

"We're on Tottenham Court Road," panted Hermione in response, getting to her feet, and finally noticing the people watching. It was obvious the moment she got over the pain and confusion, suddenly remembering everything about the Death Eater attack mere moments before. "Walk, let's just walk. I-I don't know why, I just did it. We need to get somewhere to change clothes and think."

Harry helped steady his two female companions, and noticed the surrounding crowd seemed to be following them, muttering and making several comments the trio could overhear quite clearly. He was about to make some comment when Gin beat him to it.

"It's called a vagina," the scantily dressed woman declared simply, toward three of the men who were leering at her, "and yes that _is_ bruising, well earned over the last twenty four hours. Now you, _all of you_, if you do not mind please _FUCK OFF OR I WILL BURN YOUR BONES TO ASH!_"

Harry and Hermione both winced slightly at those last few bellowed words, shear volume alone seeming to be enough to shatter glass or melt concrete. "I-, we, I need to think," Hermione stated as he and Gin took her by the arms, leading her off through the rapidly dispersing pack of muggles.

Midnight blue met unforgivable green as the former-ish boyfriend and girlfriend locked eyes. Memories of the rapid departure from the Burrow beginning to return with more force, the two nevertheless grabbed an arm each of their brunette friend and dragged her into an establishment signed in bold golden letters on a black background, labelling the place _'The Tottenham_.'

Bustling their way through the busy bar Hermione got over some of her agitation, stating aloud mostly to herself, "I don't think this would have been my first choice for somewhere quiet to think."

"This is a muggle bar then?" Gin asked them, "Do they sell any decent ales?"

"I think you need to put on some pants, everyone is staring, and I'm pretty sure that guy in the flannel shirt followed us in here."

"Or you could cast a _Notice-Me-Not_ charm," she suggested back, "In muggle areas I can't use magic remember?"

"I'm too bloody tired for all this," Hermione sighed, fatigue evident in her tone. "Would you mind buying us a drink Harry? I'll dig out a couple of potions and cast some stuff."

"No problem," Harry sighed right back, mirroring the fatigued tone unconsciously. Something told him the long tiring day was far from over, and that there would be a long tiring night ahead of him before they got any real rest.

Maybe it was the fact that everyone at the Burrow was in uncertain and nebulous danger, or the ease with which the Death Eaters had smashed their way through the Weasley home's protective wards, or the fact that Voldemort was now apparently de facto ruler of Magical Britain, but Harry's instincts were telling him the last few day's fun and relaxation were over.

For him the war had truly begun.

','

Harry returned a few minutes later with three tall glasses filled with bubbles and amber, noticing that there was a pool of stillness around the table they'd commandeered, presumable a strong muggle repelling ward saying as he had no trouble finding the two. Without pausing from her arm-deep exploration of her purple bag, Hermione forced into his hands a vial of potion and was unceremoniously commanded to drink. Whatever it was washed away the day's fatigue, pushing back the tiredness to the edges of awareness, leaving behind the feeling of having had at least half of a night's sleep.

"Wow, thanks," he said, stretching his arms and testing his once aching muscles. "That wasn't Pepper-Up."

"It was an Invigoration Draught," Hermione supplied. "We'll crash hard in a few hours but for now it'll keep us alert."

"Cool," he said, taking a sip of his drink. "I forgot that I didn't have any muggle money so I was forced to _Confund_ the barmaid."

"What? That's stealing Harry!" the brunette declared indignantly, and on seeing her about to go on a long rant Gin interrupted.

"Tom has the Ministry, and you're worried about him paying for drinks?"

"It's the principle of the thing."

"Actually, I did it mostly because the barmaid was flashing googly eyes at me, and it was making me uncomfortable," Harry admitted. "Did you put some charms on this coat or something?"

"Nar, it's just that the Browncoat fits like it was tailored specifically for you. Although on the downside it obscures the view of your ass." Harry choked on his pint on hearing that last and the redhead grinned at him. "Anyway, kidnapping me, Death Eater attack? You know the important stuff?"

"Right, the Burrow was attacked, I hit a bunch of Death Eaters, and Hermione almost Splinched us into a million pieces…,"

"That was _your_ fault."

"Is it weird that I'm not exactly worried about any of this?"

"I don't think you're supposed to mix alcohol with an Invigoration Draught, I think it has some weird side effects," Gin replied with brows knitted in thought, "it goes against Praylett and Dodgson's second law."

"I've only had one pint," Harry protested.

"You had a couple of Firewhiskey shots at the wedding."

"I guess. What do you think of muggle beer?"

"How do you know about Praylett and Dodgson's laws?" Hermione asked in interest.

"It's a bit weak, but the taste is okay I suppose."

"What are these laws?" Harry asked.

"Didn't you see my O.W.L. results?" Gin replied to Hermione's question. At the shake of her wavy brown hair she went on, "I got three Outstanding grades; Defence, History, and Potions."

"You're good at History?" Harry asked, mind wandering, instantly forgetting his previous question.

"Yeah, I have to do most of my study in the Library because Binns is useless, but I find wizard history to be quite fascinating."

"Doesn't Praylett and Dodgson's second law have something to do with mental clarity?" asked Hermione.

"Yeah that's probably true," Harry went on, "I remember thinking a couple of years ago that all the stuff about Giant Wars would have been really interesting if taught by someone other than Binns… Hold on," Harry grasped onto the other thing he'd just heard, holding fast to it, believing it to be important, "did you say _mental clarity_?"

The three of them looked at one another, as one stating, "Crap!"

"What were we talking about again?"

They were quiet for a long moment.

"Foxglove Essence," the girls snapped together, coming up with the antidote at the same instant. "Foxglove Essence should act as a stabiliser against the mixed ingredients."

A few minutes later, the droplets of Foxglove Essence had stopped their minds from wandering off on useless tangents, and Harry had gone off to buy a second round of drinks. But this time he'd actually paid for them with money given him by Hermione, along with a stern glare of reproach. Sitting back down it occurred to Harry that they'd been prattling on for about twenty minutes without any Death Eaters or Ministry people tracking them down, therefore it was probably safe to say _The Tottenham_ was a secure enough place to stay while they came up with a plan.

"So," Harry began, mood becoming a touch more grim, "What do we do now?"

There was silence.

"Look, just answer me this," Gin said eventually, "do you want me to come with you guys? Sort of a Ron replacement because I know he would have gone with you if he were still alive. I can get Bill to remove the Trace without too much effort."

Harry and Hermione shared a look for a long moment, both mulling over the offer. She was trustworthy, and would doubtlessly keep the secrets Dumbledore had entrusted them with. Ginevra had been open and enthusiastic in her support, even working behind her mother's back when helping the two of them prepare for the task ahead, and it wasn't like they couldn't use the help.

"Listen Gin, Dumbledore gave us something to do…,"

"Killing Tom," the redhead interrupted.

"Sort of, it's something else," Harry said carefully, "and he made sure nobody but us knew about it for damn good reasons."

"Harry, are you sure?" Hermione asked evenly. "It's just that three people were supposed to know, and only two currently do."

He paused again and took another drink, thinking deeply, concluding after a time to just trust Dumbledore's plan. The Headmaster had known what he was doing, and even if he died before telling Harry everything he needed to know, the man had _given his life_ to save Harry's, so he deserved that much trust.

Regardless of everything he'd been thinking about lately…

"You said early this morning you intended to help Neville when you got back to Hogwarts," the green eyed teenager said sombrely. "The two of you talked at the end of last term, and you were going to continue the DA."

"Neville can do that on his own," she said slowly, "I don't know if you realise this, but he's been a lot different since what happened at the Department of Mysteries."

"Still…,"

"I think what the two of you are doing is probably more important. Besides, I heard Shacklebolt and Remus Lupin mention something about you being the best hope we have, and that it was the last thing Dumbledore told the two of them before he died."

He shared another look with Hermione.

"Yeah," Hermione agreed, "what do you think Harry?"

"I think I'm going to trust Dumbledore," he stubbornly said after a while, "Voldemort is my problem, and Gin's Hogwarts plan sounded solid."

They took a few minutes and finished their drinks together after that, easing into comfortable positions wearily, losing themselves in their own minds. Harry settled back and closed his eyes, and in so doing missed the two large men approaching the table. This almost cost the young man his life as the scene exploded into motion, Hermione yelled _"Dolohov!"_ he felt the flying body of Ginevra slam into him, and heard the splattering of a curse transfiguring half a dozen muggles into blood and gore.

Somehow the Death Eaters had tracked them down.

','

Rolling off Harry's downed body, the lifeblood of muggles splashed across Ginevra's face, a small enough sacrifice to keep the man alive. The last echoing vowel of the _Expulso_ charm hanging in the air from Dolohov's bellow, gave the woman something to target, and with a flick of her blood matted hair her wandarm came to bear at the same instant Hermione's severing charm lashed out toward the second Death Eater.

"_Ignis Hexia!"_ she sang out the spell taught her at the beginning of summer by Bill, a churning column of magic trailed by motes of stygian flame, apparently learned from a dodgy Dutch bodyguard he'd met on some Gringotts expedition. She'd asked for the hottest fire her eldest brother knew how to conjure, and after some cajoling he had come through for her.

Dolohov was somehow able to deflect it, but the best he could manage was a wall of force directing the searing heat toward his partner, who had the misfortune to be defending against Hermione's attack at the time. The blast of intense heat flayed the flesh from the man's face and Ginevra began to smile the wild, animalistic smile of a predator… but was cut short by such an intense bout of agony that she could barely hold back a scream, let alone stay on her feet.

The drain on her damaged magic was so intense, a thousand fire ants crawling through her veins, and an electric pulse of a thunderbolt wracking through her skull. Ginevra could hardly make out the shimmering silver shield Harry was holding over her, or the feel of his hand and back as it pressed up against her body protectively.

Vision swam back enough to notice the bar was burning down, that Hermione was backlit by the rising flames, exchanging barked and shouted spells with the Inner Circle Death Eater. "…-e need to get out of here now," someone spoke through a haze of pain.

There was another crash, and a splashing of yellow light on Harry's cracking shield, Ginevra pushed the feeling of synaptic apocalypse to the back of her mind, hearing, "…-ere _can_ we go?" in a distant voice.

"Godric's Hollow," her mouth said on its own, sounding weak even to her own protesting ears, "safe."

"He'll be watching Godric's Hollow," Hermione's voice said as Ginevra marshalled her body's agony, rolling onto her stomach with a flop.

"No he won't," Harry replied, helping her to her feet with one steadying hand. "The Death Eaters will be busy attacking Ministry positions for a while, so whatever response Voldemort might have had in mind should we go there will be weakened."

Ginevra must have been occupied longer than she thought because the building was clearly wrecked, the muggles nowhere in sight, and Hermione well on her way through putting out most of the fires.

"Besides, do you have any better ideas?" Harry asked his friend.

"More Death Eaters coming," Ginevra managed to warn them, seeing the dark cloaked figures appear outside, obscured as they were by a blanket of smoke.

Hermione didn't waste time, simply grabbed them both, and Apparated away with a loud crack.

','

The tattered group had been walking in silence since they reappeared at the once hometown of Lily and James Potter, holding a portion of Ginevra's weight as they did so, making it easier on the redheaded woman who'd had such a strong reaction during the fight. Harry was worried about the girl, and not for the extreme pain caused by her damaged _Corpus Magi_ channelling way more magic than she'd been advised to use.

No, the relatively straightforward medical side effects didn't concern him much, given he'd been present when the Healer gave his orders. Once his heartbeat had slowed enough and he'd managed to process his thoughts, Harry remembered the look on Gin's face the instant before she collapsed. That immense and impressive conjuration of fire magic was one thing, but the appearance of open… _joy_, she'd been wearing as the Death Eater's face was scoured away. That wasn't something Harry had been expecting to see.

Gin directed them into the town and past a statue of his parents carrying a tiny baby version of himself, conflicting feelings washed over him as he looked at the stone trio, with the redhead gunning a Pain Relieving potion as he stared up at it.

"We should visit the memorial," Gin said with a wince of pain, pointing down one of the streets.

"Are you sure you're okay?" The woman simply nodded, missing the fact he wasn't just enquiring as to her physical state. "I mean you just killed a guy…"

Harry caught a small smile as the woman got all of her own weight onto her feet without aid, striding away from Hermione and him with a purpose. His brunette friend was looking on with a similar concern, but Harry would guess she was just taking things in stride, the two followed after a few moments later.

They came on a ruined cottage, most of which was still standing, covered almost entirely with dark ivy, with a huge hole in the first floor, visible in the warm air of summer's evening. Harry never knew the Ministry memorialised the site of his failed murder, and looking at the gap he'd bet everything he owned was caused by a backfiring Killing Curse, Harry wasn't entirely sure he minded. He had _lived_ here once upon a time, and the very idea seemed alien to him somehow, a thing of someone else's life.

Perhaps in a world where Voldemort had chosen Neville.

Gin moved closer to the cottage, smiling her small smile the whole while, placing a slender left hand still marred by dried blood, onto a thickly rusted gate. He and Hermione read the Ministry plaque quickly, but it was clear their Pureblood friend was not, looking instead at the inscribed messages of a thousand Magicals put there over the course of the last sixteen years.

"I wrote this when I was seven years old," Gin told them, gesturing to a short missive written in a more childlike version of her own hand. "Bill took me to visit, Ron carved one too I think, but I do not remember which… That had also been good day."

"Thank you for saving us Harry Potter?" Hermione read aloud.

Ginevra shrugged, whipping her mane of hair around. "I was a kid, and my father told stories about the _Boy__ Who Lived_ to me at bedtime. White Knight and Hero, you know the kind."

"Are you serious?"

She shrugged again. "Well he's a symbol, Scrimgeour had that much right, but most people don't know him, or know that he's just Harry." He felt himself getting uncomfortable as the two girls talked about him as though he weren't there.

"_Just_?" Hermione asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Simply another guy off the street isn't that right Harry?" she turned to him with a meaningful look and Harry noticed Hermione's glare at the woman's back.

"Ease off there Hermione, it's-, kind of complicated. I'll explain later."

The brunette slowly looked between the two of them and seemed to conclude something or other, nodding to herself firmly before asking, "You wanted to visit your parents' graves?"

Harry took a deep breath, letting it out long and slow.

Then he nodded without speaking.

','

On the walk toward the Graveyard at Godric's Hollow, Hermione's mind was racing at three thousand miles per hour. When things were happening, she was being attacked, or her friends were in danger, everything just happened and she always did her best to simply get through it without dying. Taking that _Flame Cutter_ curse last year really put that facet of her personality into perspective as far as Hermione was concerned, but that was not what had her mind racing in worry and fear on the journey through the small village in the West Country.

No, it was aftermath which always got to her worst of all, almost as bad as the night before something important they'd planned, or during exam season which once upon a time seemed the most important thing in the world.

Hermione had long since resigned herself to one stark reality of her life; she was best friends with Harry Potter and therefore Voldemort, who was by a wide margin the most dangerous human being in the world, _personally_ knew her name and face, and had made it his business to kill her at the first opportunity. This understanding went a long way toward explaining why Hermione was always prepared to leave some place at a moment's notice, and tried her utmost to think through the implications of dangerous situations as fast as she possibly could.

One implication which was standing on a table and waving around a bright red flag in her mind, metaphorically speaking, was the question as to _how_ those two Death Eaters had tracked them to Tottenham Court Road. Ginevra used a spell while underage, and therefore had set off the Trace which was still on her, but that had been _after_ the two goons found them…

Implications as to that _Ignis Hexia_ spell were best thought on another time, given Hermione was unsure if _she_ could cast something like that with such apparent ease, so she'd just transfigured a weapon at the girl's request at the same time Harry offered her his cloak.

Nevertheless, the redhead had been warned off casting any more magic unless she had to, partly because of the Trace problem, but mostly because Ginevra was obviously still too injured to perform magic to any large degree.

So the question which Hermione was so desperate to figure out before it killed her and her friends, was how to work out the method Voldemort or the Ministry were using to track them, and what she could do to prevent it from working. All the while she had to force herself to be on the lookout for possible surveillance on such an obvious target, as she was certain that the Dark Lord would have set something up on the off chance, if not likelihood, that Harry would eventually show up at Godric's Hollow.

As she was eased through the kissing gate Hermione mused briefly, and not for the first time, that her parents may indeed have taught her something of value, inadvertently on their part though it might have been…

A woman had to look out for herself.

There was a good chance _nobody_ would be there to save you. Her teachers and Dumbledore had been a solid source of authority, or so she had believed in the absence of familial protection, until recently when her trust in that bastard Snape's abuse of his duty…

Hermione took a short, calming breath, jarring on her runaway thoughts. That a _Professor_ could be a traitor, even one as unpleasant as that man, one trusted by Albus Dumbledore himself even, that _he_ could have done what he did, really drove home her parent's teaching.

She was on her own, Harry would help, and she would help Harry, that had always been how it worked. But this fact also meant that the job of figuring out this tracking problem was on her shoulders alone, her friend was far too distracted confronting the ghosts of his family's past.

Hermione helped search for the grave, eyes sweeping for threats, mind racing with the events of recent history.

','

The two girls in his life were silent as they flanked him without speaking, and he did nothing save stare down sombrely at his parents' graves. _'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death,'_ Harry read the inscription again before muttering, "I'll do my best on that score at least."

His mind wandered back to the scramble in the bar and Gin's burning that Death Eater to ash, the residual pain from the worst _almost Splinch_ of his life came on him gradually, and Harry's defence of the downed redhead had sprained his left ankle. His body hurt like hell but the ankle was a stupid injury to have picked up, on top of the long day's tiredness and other scrapes from fighting.

The memorial statue and his parents' old house counterpointed the worry he still felt over the people who'd been attacked after the three of them fled the Burrow. The idea that Dumbledore had once lived in this town crossed his mind, a fact told him by the Muriel woman at the wedding… he hadn't known about that, maybe it wasn't important, maybe it _was_ he couldn't decide.

There were a few graves sharing the man's surname, and one in particular for little Ariana. _That_ should have been a big deal, he thought, something that maybe the old Headmaster should have mentioned at some point, but had neglected to do so for whatever reason. After a moment Harry just let it go, once more reading the inscription, his parents' names, and the dashes between their two numbers.

The reason he'd come to the town in the first place.

"Did you say something Harry?" Hermione asked him softly, having overheard the muttering.

"Nothing," he responded, "nothing important anyway, just idle thoughts." She offered a small wreath of flowers which he laid between the memorial stones.

"I'm going to kill him."

The statement was forceful, too forceful for the still evening air, and it caused Hermione to squeak and jump a little. Gin just snorted a laugh; steadier on her feet now than she had been on entering the village, and when he looked at her she was smiling at him, weird girl.

"I am, I'm going to kill Voldemort and I don't care about whatever else happens."

"H-Harry, did you feel that?" Hermione asked, eyes darting around like a startled bird.

Ginevra looked at him fondly, still chuckling, "You're swearing revenge over your parents' graves? Way to go old school there Harry."

"No, seriously, did either of you feel that?" the brunette asked again, and Harry turned his eyes from the laughing girl toward her. He raised an eyebrow at Hermione in question, mood still in quite a dark place, "Like a whooshing feeling of badness…," she trailed off, her eyes going wide, wand snapping into her hand.

Harry didn't need any other cues and he dropped into a roll, bringing his own wand up, snarling the incantation for his shield on reflex. A Death Eater's spell slammed into the magical protection and a second flew into the position he'd been standing in not a moment before, Lily Potter's marble tombstone turning to rubble with a booming crack.

When his eyes focused on the attackers he saw twelve figures in silver masks, and one standing tall at their front.

Lord Voldemort himself was with them.

','

After sweeping her vinewood wand in a broad arc to animate some of the shrubbery so it would attack any approaching threats, Hermione grabbed Gin's arm and put a half turn into her Apparition, smacking the two of them headfirst into an Anti-Apparition jinx, dazing them noticeably for an instant.

"Damn it!" the redhead shouted, vanishing from view beneath Harry's family cloak, leaving Harry and her alone. Hermione barely managed a clumsy dive away from incoming spellfire when she noticed Harry begin throwing around magic from behind his impossible silver shield.

'This is not a good situation,' she thought frantically. 'You know what Hermione Granger, if you're trapped and going to die anyway, take one of these bastards with you!'

"_Sectumsempra!"_ she spat the Dark Curse at the nearest Death Eater, carving through the man's weak little shield charm, then followed up with _"Expulso!"_ to the midriff, two potentially lethal spells knocking the cloaked figure out of the fight in less than four seconds.

Three of the remaining five converging on her volleyed a rainbow of terrifying bullshit at her, but a wave of pure magic from Hermione's left took her feet out from under her, flinging her clear of all save a single spell. A loud snap which accompanied the sharp stabbing of pain was probably indicative of a shattered tibia. The brunette fell heavily, and through the haze of pain noticed the oncoming Death Eaters had been off balanced just as much as she from the overpressure wave of magic, coming from…

Harry and Voldemort locked together in a bright golden stream of magical energy.

','

Harry was peripherally aware of Hermione engaging the other Death Eaters, and he even had the wherewithal to notice Ginevra disappearing beneath his Invisibility Cloak, but the vast majority of his attention was directed solely toward the tall, pale, and serpentine form of Voldemort as it stalked towards him, a look of pure hatred on his face.

In desperation he incanted a Killing Curse for the first time in his life, he swore to kill the man over his parents' graves not two minutes previously, and while this was not the kind of situation Harry envisioned it happening, maybe he'd get lucky. His wand didn't so much as cough up a mote of green light however, and the Dark Lord looked amused at the failed attempt, yew wand gripped in his left fist coming to point at Harry's chest.

Having been unable to Apparate away for the same reason as Hermione, Harry took a page from her book and shouted Snape's old slicing curse at his opponent, the _Sectumsempra_ spell being intercepted by Voldemort with casual, perhaps even _careless_ ease.

It was exactly like it had been in the Little Hangleton Graveyard, the brother wands linking together as _Priori Incantatem_ went into effect. A golden arc of magic linked the dual cores preventing them from being used against one another, and a powerful wave of magic bleeding off the two combatants was violently released from the epicentre, surging outward in all directions.

What was different this time however was the sickeningly triumphant smirk on the lipless face of his enemy, this time Voldemort knew what was happening, and had been fucking _counting on it_! Harry would have gulped, widened his eyes in fear, or tried to escape if he believed he had the time, but the only thought going through his mind as the Dark Lord went for a second weapon was…

'Oh Shit!'

','

After Hermione clubbed her over the head with that failed escape attempt, Ginevra was just about ready to set the fucking mudblood whore on fire in retaliation for all of the awful Apparition she'd been forced to do lately. Tom and the Death Eaters where closing on them and the redhead knew she was in no shape to try channelling any magic at all, pretty certain from the last hex in the muggle pub, any attempt would lead to her instant death.

So she wrapped the Invisibility Cloak Harry gave her on arriving at Godric's Hollow around her shoulders, and scrambled out of the line of fire, transfigured butcher's knife tied tight to her right thigh. She kept low and as silent as possible, moving with all the stealth she'd learned as a young girl in an attempt to get behind the dozen robed figures.

An overpressure wave from somewhere behind her flung her into a tree, possibly cracking a few ribs, but Ginevra remained unseen as the battle went on without her. A few score racing heartbeats passed while the Death Eaters got their legs back under them, beginning to converge once more on her muggleborn friend, Harry battling Tom one on one off to the side.

With a deft motion her slender left hand reached over the top of her target's head, yanking the silver mask up its face with a violent tug, exposing the neck to clear air. With a fluid motion her right brought arm around almost in an embrace, though with cleaver in hand. Ginevra slashed deeply into the person's windpipe the instant before her arms were once again concealed beneath the cloak.

Casually sweeping the razor edge against the back of the, apparently female Death Eater's hand, her wand dropped to the ground, the burbling croak of a slit throat released to still air from a dying woman mouth. Ginevra skipped away a few strides, so as not to be caught so easily, and she took note of Hermione tackling another Death Eater in the foreground, Harry screaming something in rage further behind.

The dying woman's wandmate was flicking his or her wand about, sending what was presumably detection spells searching for concealments, but the caress of magic seemed to not have located her while she was covered by an Invisibility Cloak…

Ignoring the oddity for the time being, Ginevra approached from behind again, hamstringing the man, before she yanked back the mask, dispatching the minion with another deep slash of the throat.

With a mental giggle she thought:

'Merlin but this is fun.'

','

Harry's blood streaked gaze was losing focus, but the scar pains which always accompanied those forays into his adversary's mind felt like a dagger thrusting repeatedly between his eyes. The emotion the Dark Lord was feeling was nothing short of exultation, triumph pure and simple at finally having his prophesised foe where he wanted him.

With phoenix wands linked, Harry watched as a second wand came up in Voldemort's off hand, his own dread mixing with the elated hatred through his scar which Harry knew without a shadow of a doubt was the emotion needed to charge the Killing Curse that would end his life after _five_-too-many lucky escapes.

Out of nowhere, as had happened in the skies above Surry six days previously, the Holly wand shanghaied his body and magic, acting more or less on its own. Harry felt a warmth and _trust_ from the artefact a moment before the world slowed down, the golden beam connecting the wands snapping with an elastic twang.

Not an instant later a purple wedge of magic flew from the Holly tip toward Voldemort's second wand.

The Dark Lord's thoughts pierced his and Harry got a full wash of surprise and fear as the twisted man recognised whatever the hell was coming at him. The spell –_The Demon Cutter_ Harry suddenly knew, as the images and ideas floated through both of their minds together, one of the few direct damage spells which could actually harm Dragons– it shattered Voldemort's lesser magical Foci and dug a deep furrow into the back of his right hand.

With a supreme effort of will the Dark Lord managed to turn such deadly magic away just before losing his limb, but the spell was flung clumsily to the side, shearing through a powerful shield cast by one of the masked Death Eaters…

…slicing into the man's enchanted robes…

…bisecting his body in half on the diagonal…

…and then continuing to dig a wide trench into the ground.

…

"Wow," Harry stated shortly, looking at his length of holly in stupefied astonishment, "now _that's_ a fucking spell!"

Harry allowed his eyes to narrow predatorily as he looked from the wand to his lifelong foe, catching a flicker of genuine fear flash across the man's silted, snakelike eyes.

Browncoat flapping on the winds of magic Harry mercilessly fired the thing three more times in rapid succession, and when the Dark Lord managed to evade his attacks with an acrobatic grace, unleashed the golden flames of Inanna's Breath, immolating two more of the man's slaves in a massive wash of power.

"You killed my parents you bastard!" Harry yelled, shooting off two more Demon Cutters. "Run you baldy fuck, I'm coming for you, flee before you burn."

With that Harry powered everything he had into the golden flame spell for the final time; a huge pillar of burning destruction engulfed the remaining men and women wearing silver masks.

Harry dropped to the ground unconscious, slightly manic look of _glee_ gracing his face.

','

Lens of Sanity  
_The Demon Cutter_ as well as a number of upcoming badass spells, was taken from a completed story called _Jamie Evans and Fate's Bitch (now Fate's Fool)_, one of my favourite FanFictions. If you go read it and think the story is good enough to comment on, my suggestion is you leave a review saying something like; _**"Wow, your Beta is awesome!"**_

*beat* _(-ly bad)_

Anyways…

…the first arc is over and we've caught up to the Prologue. _Good-ish_ so far?


	10. While you were sleeping

','

Of Chaos and Flame  
by Lens of Sanity

','

Chapter Nine: While you were sleeping

','

Harry was walking through a white marble hallway, finely made tapestries and portraits of similar looking blond men and women adorning the walls, everything ostentatious and nothing in any sort of disrepair. He was trailed by two of his Death Eaters, neither of whom were important enough to bother remembering their names, and as he raised his right hand to push open the heavy mahogany door he once again noticed the deep, hideous scar marring his otherwise pale and unblemished flesh.

Dismissing the flash of irritation which passed through him, Harry moved over to the recovering man he'd recently been informed had regained consciousness at long last, heavy burns disfiguring his face into something unrecognisable. That the man survived at all was nothing short of miraculous, a work of healing which would have surpassed all but the very best of those working for Saint Mungo's. Bellatrix's fascinations could come in so useful on occasion in the most surprising of areas.

"Mister Jugson, it appears as though you will live," Harry began, a high pitch to his tone echoing around the room, silencing all those who could hear it by weight of presence alone.

"My Lord," the bedridden man spoke, a damaged voice, cracked and hoarse.

"Be silent," he interrupted, "is what you claimed to have accomplished after you woke true?"

"Yes my Lord, I believe so."

"Excellent, you will get the opportunity to repay Harry Potter for the injuries he has inflicted upon you." The man was about to speak again, doubtless an attempt at grovelling thanks or some such thing, but Harry raised his hand for silence once more. "My standing orders have changed, heal quickly and be about your tasks."

"Of course my Lord, by your command," Mister Jugson said with a bedridden bow as Harry swept around in a graceful motion, exiting the room with a dark robe flowing about his shoulders. He had one more guest to question this evening.

Harry strode down several corridors, and down two flights of stairs, footfalls landing heavily, reverberating even on the cold stone floors with the additional weight of his enhanced strength. Eventually, and still flanked by his twin bodyguards, Harry entered the soundproofed and reinforced guest room, and in it a man and woman getting closely acquainted.

"Bella," he whispered shortly, and the woman plummeted to her knees in front of him, eyes on the ground with a show of exaggerated subservience. "On your feet, heal him."

He took in the battered form of his guest, gaunt with malnutrition and hair lank, missing in clumps which had been cut away many days previously. The elderly man was held at eye level by the grace of two meat hooks through his shoulders, and the bloodletting coupled with a wildness around the eyes indicated the man was likely in a more agreeable mood than he had been of late.

Bellatrix ripped him down, and with three flicks of her wand, healed the majority of the physical damage, the woman's appetites giving ample opportunity to study just what made a human body tick, and an upshot of this being that it left her a most accomplished healer.

"Now, Mister Ollivander," Harry began in a cold, unamused tone, ignoring the wandmaker's gasping breath and near-maddened eyes, "We will have our previous conversation again. But first…,"

Harry raised the pale length of yew in his left hand, focused his desire, and without uttering a single syllable the twisting red light of his oft used spell lashed out toward the downed man. Holding the Cruciatus Curse for upwards of seventy five seconds ought to disabuse his guest of any notion Bellatrix's healing was a reward of some form.

"So," Harry said around five minutes later, with Ollivander managing to get his twitching under control, to some extent at least, "You have lied to Lord Voldemort."

"I-I, I did not. A different wand should have worked," Ollivander repeated the sentiment he'd expressed after Lucius' wand had failed him. "P-Priori Incantatem…"

Another bar of twisting red magic hit the elderly man, but Harry was forced to let up after only ten or twelve seconds, as telltale signs the torture curse was about to end his life were beginning to show.

"If you have no useful information for me Mister Ollivander, Lord Voldemort can see no reason to keep you alive."

"T-the, I can," the beaten man coughed up mucus, intermixed with a disturbing amount of bright red blood, before finishing in a strained voice, "Legend, t-the Elder Wand. Gregorovitch, only a rumour…." Ollivander gathered his thoughts as best he could, "Many years ago Gregorovitch, he, Gregorovitch claimed to have been studying it, duplicating the qualities in his own work."

"The wand Warlock Deverill claimed to have been in possession of at the end of the seventeenth century?" questioned Harry, interested for the first time, "I believed such an artefact to be mere myth. What was the word, ah yes, _the Deathstick_…"

"Not, a myth," Ollivander choked out, "the Wand of Destiny is quite real, although I cannot know for sure whether Gregorovitch actually had his hands on it. There is a chance he invented and spread the rumour himself."

Hearing the term _Wand of Destiny_ Harry almost sent another Cruciatus Curse at the wandmaker, but decided against it, eventually asking him, "This is the best information you can offer me Mister Ollivander?"

He made affirmative gestures and Harry's hand came up once again, intent focused on ending the man's life when Bellatrix spoke up, eyes still not meeting his, her stance docile and tone meek, "If you have no more use for him my Lord, may I discover how long I can keep him alive?"

"Very well my dear Bella," he responded, waving for the woman to indulge herself.

"No-, no please I beg you. I will do anything. Do not do this, please…"

Harry ignored the sounds of Ollivander's eyes being torn from their sockets, and leaving the room, began to plan a trip abroad.

If such a powerful artefact actually existed Harry was determined to make it his.

With a swirl of his robes Harry swept off toward the main room, thinking on the orders he'd have to issue, and how best to position his forces.

','

The blackness began to fade from Harry's senses, his consciousness returning to his own body at a slow ebbing of another man's emotions, the physical and mental exhaustion mounting as it did so. A timeless infinity later he managed to squeeze open a single eye, followed by a second, and was rewarded by a familiar, pleasant face looking down at him with worry in its expression.

He noted that he was covered in three thick blankets, wrapped tightly around his supine form, and that the woman over him was keeping his forehead cool with an ice cold cloth, now drenched with his own blood. Harry gave her what smile he could, noticing for the first time that he was bathed in a cold sweat, and that his every joint was aching.

"Hey Hermione," he managed a slight curving of lips but not much more, glad to see oldest his friend alive and well. "Are you okay?"

"Am _I_ okay?" she asked incredulously. "Yes Harry, _I'm_ fine. I am not the one who's been out for three days."

"Oh. Well that's good then," Harry managed lamely, attempting to get up using his own power.

Hermione forced him back down with superhuman strength, and he didn't stand a chance of overcoming her, finding himself pinned and unable to move. "No, you are to stay right where you are. And stop struggling!" Hermione added that last when he tried to wriggle away.

"We don't have time for this, we've got to go rescue Gregorovitch."

Harry found himself completely paralysed. Not just from the neck down, he couldn't so much as wriggle his eyebrows or twitch his toes. Hermione's 10 and ¾ inch vinewood wand was stowed away, and she went back to mopping up the blood with a cold cloth. He had just enough control over his body to express a glare, or the semblance of a glare, or perhaps she just knew him well enough to understand he was glaring at her.

"This spell is known as a Ragdoll Hex Harry, and is far more difficult to cast than a _Petrificus Totalus_, but has the advantage in that it's harder to counter and I can manipulate your body… as though it were a ragdoll I guess." Hermione said this in a calm lecturing voice, carefully making sure the blood and sweat where cleaned from his face, and that he was still unable to move. When finished to her satisfaction the brunette looked him in the eye and spoke again. "Now, I've barely slept over the last four days, and I am not releasing the hex until you promise to stay exactly where you are."

Harry didn't move.

He couldn't.

"If you agree look up then down twice."

Harry glared at her.

"Hey, I'm quite happy to leave you there," Hermione told him. "You've been dead to the world since the fight with You-Know-Who, but you started thrashing about an hour ago, and I'm not letting you up until you promise."

Harry glared at her.

Then he looked up and down twice.

"And you promise not to do any magic or try to get up on your own."

He looked up and down twice.

Hermione release the spell.

"We need to go rescue Gregorovitch," Harry exploded, immediately trying to get to his feet, "Voldemort is going to kill him."

The wildly unappreciated muggleborn forced him back onto the couch he'd been lying on, and he realised for the first time they were in the front room at Grimmauld Place. Hermione had attempted to cover his mouth, preventing Harry from uttering the Dark Lord's name, but she'd been unsuccessful.

Tutting and with tired resignation she just said, "You can't say You-Know-Who's name Harry, that's how he was tracking us, the word is cursed. And now thanks to you the Death Eaters are probably about to burst through the door and kill us."

Two minutes past, with both seventeen year olds gripping their wands, waiting for an attack they were obviously too fatigued to be able to survive.

"Cursed?" asked Harry eventually.

Hermione went over to the window, pulling it aside she saw three men looking distinctly out of place, concluding they were likely Death Eaters or agents of Death Eaters, and that the Fidelius Charm was surprisingly still holding. Exhaling a sigh of relief the girl said, "Yeah, I figured it out in the Graveyard before You-Know-Who attacked us. Remus said it was probably a Taboo when I told him my theory, and that it was used by the Dark Lord during the first war. It's why Magicals are all afraid to speak the name… You know, I wonder why I've never read about that in any of the books."

"Dumbledore always said fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself," Harry told her, attempting to sit up again.

"You lie back down or I'll hex you again!" Hermione snapped. "You don't have the magical reserves and need rest. You've gone through what? _two_ bouts of serious magical exhaustion in less than a week."

Harry irritably noted that he _was_ incredibly knackered, and that his friend probably needed sleep even more than he, yet had been watching over him as he slept regardless.

"Fine," he acquiesced to her unreasonable demands, with such mature dignity she couldn't possibly comment.

"Pout all you want just don't get up."

_He wasn't pouting!_

"Could you tell me what happened please?"

','

"Relashio!"_ Hermione screamed, the Death Eater's clumsy pawing on her ended in an instant with a flash of fiery red sparks. Injured leg hastily bound in a magical splint, Hermione eased herself arm over arm behind a gray marble mausoleum, putting her back to the stone for added protection._

_The man who'd closed on her returned with a friend and Hermione whispered, "_Glisseo_," turning the ground frictionless, and barked a too loud "_Expulso!"_ at the first man's face planted form. It was something, but not enough, Hermione had done what she could, but at some point superior numbers and better training, simply overcame good luck and preparation._

_The Death Eater, silver mask sparkling in the __night's __dim starlight, raised his arm, wandtip glowing the green of an Unforgivable… __Then his mask was gone, a surprised young man's face beneath the disguise, not thuggish and scary as Hermione had simply assumed, then the Death Eater's throat was ripped open with a flash of metal and a splashing of blood. A disembodied face, far too pretty and far too cheerful for the current circumstances appeared off to the side, and it winked before asking, "I'm up five, what about you?"_

_A massive column of golden fury, an apocalyptic pyre of destruction, released a surge of power which was difficult to believe possible even when feeling the heat by her own senses, and it prevented the muggleborn girl from making any kind of reply. It lasted a long time, too long, extending seconds stretching out as the magic in the air became thick and palpable._

_Then it abruptly stopped._

_The two girls blinked at each other and Gin disappeared beneath the Cloak, returning ten seconds later with news. "The Death Eaters are gone," the redhead said in a wondering tone, "like _all of them_, Tom too…"_

"_You mean Harry… _won_?" she asked in disbelief._

"_Yeah, he's on the deck, but seems to be alive."_

_Hermione was dragged over to where Harry lay, prone on the ground, within spitting distance of his fallen family. He was alive as they had believed, unconscious with exhaustion, but alive where the blackened ground on which his enemies had been standing, seemed to have fused into glass._

"_You're not mobile and can still use magic, so you look after him," Gin said, moving off, "I'll take care of the bodies."_

','

"Wait," Harry interrupted, "she started _looting_ the bodies?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"She came back with a fair pile of Galleons, a double handful of potions, eight captured wands, and a bunch of other miscellaneous valuables."

"I-, okay," Harry said, not really knowing what to say.

"She said the Death Eaters didn't need their stuff anymore," Hermione said with a shrug, "Which I guess is sort of true."

"You mentioned a conversation with Remus?" Harry prompted, after the two of them trailed off for a short while.

"I grabbed you, side-along Apparated with Ginny, and we hauled your carcass onto that couch," Hermione told him. "None of us were hurt too badly, although fixing my leg hurt a lot more than I thought it would. The book didn't mention that part!" his bushy haired friend said that last with an annoyed pout. "I determined you had a simple, if ridiculously over the top case of magical exhaustion again, and the only thing we could do was let you rest."

"Hey, I'm lying here," Harry protested, arms raised in submission. "See, lying just like a good little patient for his nurse."

"Gin and I woke when Mr. Weas- Arthur's Patronus Messenger flew through the window," Hermione said, continuing to catch her friend up with current events, not bothering to wonder on that nurse comment. "The family are all safe, except Mrs. Weasley got arrested for ripping off one of the Aurors' arms when he attempted to check Fred's injuries…"

"She did what?" Harry exploded.

"She's fine, only got a caution because the Auror didn't want to press charges," she replied. "Probably doesn't get him many macho points being defeated by a housewife, and they reattached his arm without too much fuss apparently, so he must have just let the whole thing slide."

That made a kind of sense to Harry, a big tough guy working in Magical Law Enforcement like that, if he got his arse handed to him by Molly Weasley he'd probably be a laughing stock. Besides, the Weasleys were Purebloods, even though they pretty much openly sided with Dumbledore's side in the last war, and would likely get away with more than other people if what Harry was beginning to suspect was true.

"Ginevra wanted me to apologise for her," Hermione said after a moment, "she sort of murdered your House Elf, and then we had a Civilised Discussion about the ethics of such an act," for some reason Harry's instincts translated this to; _'the two girls screamed at one another until they were both hoarse.' _"So the upshot of this is that poor Kreacher's head is on the wall, and the portrait of Walburga Black is gone…"

'_How had they gotten over the Permanent Sticking Charm?'_ Harry thought the question, but didn't interrupt his friend.

"Remus Lupin showed up two days later, he'd been getting tailed by a Death Eater who managed to land an obscure tracking spell, so it took him a while before he shook the guy off. I told Remus about my '_don't use You-Know-Who's name_,' idea and he said it was probably a Taboo like in the last war. Apparently speaking the Tabooed word makes a kind of _disturbance in the Force_, which breaks through Enchantments and Concealments, tracking down the person's location in moments."

Harry raised an eyebrow at her pointedly.

"It's how Remus described it," the girl protested, "like in that movie."

"What movie?"

"You know what, nevermind," Hermione gave it up as a bad job. "Scrimgeour and a bunch of Aurors got away during the coup but nobody knows what happened to them, and that Pius Thicknesse character is Minister now…"

"Isn't he under the Imperius Curse?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, what else did Remus have to say?"

"Actually he was acting like a total…" Hermione obviously bit down on what she was going to say, but Harry stared at her evenly until she continued. "Look, he finally broke down and bedded Tonks at the Wedding okay, and he came in here, swaggered around for a bit, trying to come up with an excuse, _any excuse_, to run off from her. He wanted to come join us and have a fine old adventure, safely far, far away from…"

Hermione stopped again, trailing off and not wanting to finish, before Harry probed her to get on with it. "I hexed him a bunch of times, and told him to stop acting like a coward. He took Ginevra with him when he left, back to wherever her family are holed up."

"S-so she's gone?" Harry casually asked after a second.

"She wrote you a letter," Hermione said, a tone he couldn't quite recognise, but got the feeling the _casualness_ in his voice hadn't been very convincing, not to his oldest friend at any rate.

','

"What was that you were talking about when you woke up?" Hermione asked him, not long after feeding him a few potions of indistinct purpose, "Something to do with Gregorovitch? He's a wandmaker right? I think I remember reading something about him in a Durmstrang Prospectus."

Harry quaffed down the final potion, ignoring the lingering taste of sweaty athletic support with a look if distaste barely showing on his face. "Vol-, that is to say _You-Know-Who_, has been torturing Ollivander."

"How do you know?" he tapped his scar with the empty potion vial, smiling wanly at her. "Harry, you aren't supposed to let this happen anymore," insisted Hermione, a quiet but firm voice. "Dumbledore wanted you to use Occlumency remember."

"Yeah, well I can't _do_ Occlumency, it's not like I can control when these visions happen either!"

"Dumbledore thought the connection was dangerous…"

"Dangerous? Yes I suppose he was right about that," Harry admitted. "Anyway, You-Know-Who has been torturing Ollivander, trying to figure out why my wand keeps beating his," shooting his friend a quelling look as she was about to interrupt, Harry continued, "Ollivander told him about _Priori Incantatem_, and advised a different wand should have overcame the problem… Only my wand can fire stupidly powerful spells like Inanna's Breath and the Demon Cutter, and Ollivander doesn't have the faintest idea _why_."

"The Demon Cutter?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's what the purple spell I was firing off is called, apparently it can hurt Dragons even," said Harry, thinking back to the fight and remembering what was presumably Voldemort's knowledge, "I can't wait to experiment with it actually."

"Wands can't fire spells on their own, it's impossible…" Hermione said, tiredness showing.

"Anyway, Ollivander told the Dark Lord about a special wand called-, what was it again…" he trailed off for a second, "the Deathstick. No! That's not right. Ollivander called it _the Elder Wand_, and said Gregorovitch might know where it is."

On this Hermione was silent.

"Do you know what he was talking about? Vol-, You-Know-Who seemed to think the artefact was a myth."

Hermione didn't say anything for a while, lifting her wand to silently _Summon_ her belongings, she dragged out the book left her in Albus Dumbledore's will. Flipping over a few pages, she pointed to a fairytale titled; _the Tale of the Three Brothers_.

','

Harry lay back on his couch, exhausted but totally unable to find sleep. Hermione had been convinced to get some rest herself, and was across the room breathing the light, even breaths of deep sleep. He could see her body out the corner of his eye, covers moving slightly on each inhalation, and Harry couldn't help thinking over the story she'd read to him, or that his friend had a very pleasant storytelling voice.

Lord Voldemort was going after an Unbeatable Wand, once fashioned if story told true, by Death himself from the branch of an elder tree, on the shores of an impassable river.

This was not a good turn of events.

Sure, the thing _could_ be a myth, a mere legend, a story told to children to entertain and instruct. It could simply be an interesting tale about accepting some things as inevitable, and treating powerful and dangerous forces with respect, and colouring one's own decision with a dose of humility.

But it wasn't though, was it?

There was no way in hell things could be _that_ simple. Harry knew it to his bones by this point in his short, eventful life. He finally gets an advantage; an amazingly powerful wand of his own, which can vomit out the kind of terrifying bullshit that even Voldemort himself fears and respects. Harry uses his advantage _intentionally_ for the first time in his life, and proceeds to kick the living crap out of the snakefaced bastard who'd caused him so much grief over the years.

Only now Voldemort was going to track down an Unbeatable, Death approved, totally unstoppable wand. He'd get his cold, corpse-like hands on the thing, negate any advantage Harry had over him, and in the process become _even more dangerous than he'd ever been before!_

The _bad shit o'meter_ he remembered thinking about during the broom chase didn't exactly spike on coming to these conclusions, instead it just settled down at a nice comfy _'if he pulls this off you're totally fucked Potter.'_

Harry knew he needed rest. They needed to figure out how to get to the Continent without being caught by Death Eaters. They needed to figure out how to track down Gregorovitch before Voldemort could find him. And Harry wanted answers from a wandcrafter about his own wand's strange behaviour.

And he also wanted to talk to his ex-girlfriend.

The deep, emotive, and heartfelt love note she'd left for him had only two lines:

_Don't get your dick blown off by someone you only think is under the Imperius Curse  
Catch you later – G_

'I mean seriously, what the hell?'

','

Hermione and he had been alone inside their glass-bowl for the best part of a week, Death Eaters staking out Grimmauld Place day and night, but unable to so much as see the building because of the fully functioning Fidelius Charm. Hedwig had been gone since the day after Harry woke, sent on a mission the snowy post owl had been visibly indignant over Harry's implication the task would be too much for her, and the two friends were becoming equally impatient to get out of the dingy house making moves to end the war.

Which was all probably a good thing, because the weird tracking spell Jugson had landed on Harry before being roasted alive was finally becoming useful, and the Death Eaters were not going to give the two of them much time to escape once they attacked.

"I still can't believe that worked," said Hermione, looking around at his sprawled body, over the top of Volume Seven of _Practical Defensive Magic_. "I've never so much as heard of anyone else doing it that way."

Harry put down his pencil and looked at her.

He'd been practicing the vertical sweep, ninety degree twist, hand flip motion, with agonising precision and in super slow motion. Over and over again. The same "element" he'd been rehearsing for the past two hours, a tiny part of the wandmotion necessary to cast the spell he was learning, making up less than one twelfth of the whole curse.

Nurse Granger had repeatedly insisted he do no magic whatsoever, going so far as to attempt separating him from his wand. She tried, but ultimately failed, garnering only a promise to use it only should the situation become dire.

Which was why he'd gone back to what he'd been doing earlier in the summer at his aunt and uncle's house; practicing a high level spell, only this time picturing what _Kingsley_ had shown him two days before his seventeenth birthday.

"We could, you know, leave the country now?" Harry instead responded, mostly ignoring his friend's comment. "As opposed to lounging around here, accomplishing nothing."

"You are still not fully recovered," the brunette replied. "Besides, you shouldn't be able to learn such a spell by practicing with a pencil. It makes no sense."

"Why do you always put limits on these things anyway?" Harry asked, exasperated. "This is impossible, that's impossible… It's magic, it works by magic, can we leave the country now please?"

"It works by magic? That's not an explanation."

Harry sighed and left the room looking for something to drink, he'd been allowed that much freedom after the second day of consciousness, and even though he was wary of admitting it aloud, the teenager had accepted he was in no fit state to go running off around Europe. Annoying as it was, Hermione had the right of it in those first couple of days, to keep him resting and recovering. It had even allowed them to come up with a semblance of a plan.

Returning with a bottle of pumpkin juice, and a second for Hermione, Harry drank down a small mouthful, wondering idly how the beverage could have possible gained such prominence in the Wizarding World given how it y'know, _tasted of pumpkin_.

"Let me ask you this Hermione; do you still think the word '_Accio_' when you nonverbally _Summon_ your belongings?" he asked, handing her the drink. She frowned at the question and Harry went on, "I don't, I had this big problem with nonverbal magic last year, and it was something Luna said which got me past my block. So do you?"

"No," replied Hermione, "I used to, but now I just do the wandmotions and whatever I am Summoning comes to me."

"U-huh. There you go."

"What?"

"I think that's the reason my stupid pencil method of learning spells works," Harry told her. "The words are obviously important, that's why correct pronunciation was needed in first year to get _Wingardium Leviosa_ to levitate a quill or, I don't know, the club of a troll for example." He noticed the small smile before going on. "But I'm not entirely convinced they are _really_ important, when you get right down to it. Perhaps the words aren't _vital_ or maybe even necessary."

Hermione was nodding a little listening to his theory, but on hearing that last began to shake her head. "No that's not right. The incantations _are_ necessary, I'm not entirely sure _why_ because Hogwarts doesn't cover spellcreation… They are needed, it's just with experience using the magic, a witch or wizard can perform the spell without any words at all."

Sitting himself down Harry said, "Okay," taking up his pencil again, absently going through the full motions of his spell, linking together all the elements he'd been learning.

Watching him for a while Hermione asked, "Out of interest what _did_ Luna teach you about silent magic?"

Harry paused, closed his eyes and cast his mind back, trying to remember his blonde friend's exact words. The two of them had been at Horace Slughorn's Christmas party, Hermione was busy convincing McLaggen to give her a bit of space, and the Vampire was occupied hitting on a group of seventh year girls. Luna had wandered back over to him following a talk with Professor Trelawney and observed he wasn't feeling entirely comfortable with all the people who wanted to pin him down.

When Luna threw up a really powerful _Notice-Me-Not_ spell around the two of them, she'd done it silently, so Harry had complimented her technique and asked her about all the trouble he'd been having with nonverbal magic…

And Luna said that when casting magic you're not saying an incantation to your target, you're saying it to your wand, and if your wand understands you properly it will produce what you wanted. It's supposed to be like with close friends, where you can communicate complex things with little more than a word or a gesture.

Harry probably mangled the explanation when he shared it with Hermione, but she seemed to understand what he was getting at.

"So you're saying that all the swishes and flicks," Hermione began, "and the flawlessly enunciated incantations, according to Luna, they're all about a witch or wizard communicating with their wand… Sort of like wands themselves are intelligent?"

"I guess, Ollivander told me _the wand chooses the wizard_ when I was eleven. Choice implies some measure of intelligence. And that's why practicing with a pencil works, because I'm just getting in the correct frame of mind to properly _ask_ my wand to perform the spell. Besides, even if Luna was wrong, what she said _did_ help me get past my inability to cast silently."

"I am not sure," said Hermione eventually.

"Nor am I, it's just a theory, and that's one of the reasons I really want to talk to Gregorovitch before You-Know-Who murders him!"

A snow white owl with blood dripping from her flank, and clutching an envelope in her talons, swooped into the room a moment later.

Right as a tremendous hammerstroke of force slammed into the wards around Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.

','

There was another shuddering bang, knocking dust from the very walls, and books from their tables as a palpable wave of malice hung in the air about the Ancient House Black. Hermione was scrambling to shove all her belongings into her beaded purple bag, charmed now with a Permanent Lip Stretching enchantment, while Harry bounded over to the window to the sight he knew would be greeting him.

"Yeah, it's Voldemort alright," Harry confirmed his suspicion grimly. The man was standing with arms held wide in the centre of the Islington street, and another shuddering impact of power hit the wards with no visible light coming from the Dark Lord's tall form, simply the feel of pure unadulterated _power_ emanating from his position. "Something tells me I shouldn't take another whack at him."

"Oh really, what's that," Hermione's voice came from the other room, along with the sounds of something breaking in the background.

"Well he's got like forty of his people with him." Harry eased his wand in hand, setting himself in the middle of the entranceway. "How the hell did he overcome the Fidelius anyway?"

"I don't think that's important right now, shit!" The unaccustomed foul language brought Harry up short, and he tried to get a view of his friend by looking over his shoulder. "Erm-, Harry, do you think you can hold them off for a while, this is harder than I thought it'd be?"

"What _are_ you doing?" he asked, feeling internally for his recovering magic, unsure how long he'd be able to last. A heavy rippling of magic brushed against his skin as a final impact tore down the wards around Grimmauld Place, causing the defensive magic to unravel. "Hermione?"

"Two minutes," was the response to his shout.

The front door burst open with a shower of splinters, two cloaked men ran in side by side, and Harry snapped a nonverbal _Impactus_ at the first, calmly sidestepping the second Death Eater's Killing Curse.

'Hermione, I hope you know what you're doing,' he thought, incanting Snape's Dark Curse, and getting a disturbing feeling of distaste from his wand, an ephemeral sense of disappointment floating just the wrong side of awareness. Three more silver masked men came through the gap and, green eyes narrowing, Harry's stance became wider, more predatory. 'Horizontal Demon Cutter' he thought, slashing his wand where he wanted the magic to fly.

The heavy drain on his magic caused Harry to wince in pain, but whatever shield charms the men were using, his purple wedge of destruction hacked right through them. As the three fell, Harry noticed with surprise that the trio had all bellowed Disarming Charms at him, either they were baby Death Eaters or Voldemort's orders had changed.

"_Aegis Contego!"_ he roared as the third wave broke through the gap. Hoping to save some of his reserves, Harry attempted the new Cutter he'd been practicing, a Arc of Moonlight, or more commonly known as a Sundering. _"Affligo Noctam!"_

It took him maybe nine or ten seconds to cast, but it worked, and while his attackers had battered down the Aegis, the high level saw of magic impacted the lead man, badly burned face not hiding an expression of untainted loathing as he went down.

"Get his wand you fools!" the burned faced man snarled, bleeding profusely from the torso, hunched over next the entrance.

'Okay Harry, time to retreat,' he thought, backing away, barely dodging a wild Cruciatus, and slapping down yet another barrage of _Expelliamus'_, this time using an adaptation of his simple Protego Charm. "Hermione, I'm coming."

"_Deprimo!"_ came the brunette's voice from the other corner of the room, a massive wall blown to flinders at her command. Hermione was backlit by some unknown source, and she began flinging around magic with abandon. Harry belatedly realised they had the Death Eaters in an overlapping field of fire, and he began unloading measured Reductor Curses in the hopes he'd hold back enough strength to remain conscious for a change. Hermione's disembodied voice whispered into his ear between waves of attackers, a spell of some sort projecting her voice to Harry's ear alone, "In twenty seconds there will be a small explosion, and we'll have five seconds to Apparate away. Be ready!"

Glancing her way, Harry saw her sling that purple Flame Cutter Curse she'd been hit with at the Department of Mysteries, a piece of magic he knew for a fact was outright _Dark_ in nature. There was no time to think, and as the explosion Hermione informed him of went off, he saw Voldemort himself barely visible beyond the Death Eaters he had surrounding him.

'I want to take a swing at him before I leave,' the idea struck him in the instant he should have just Apparated away. Immediately the Holly Wand slapped its tip to his left hand, and a glowing while light surrounded it to the wrist. Harry hurled that light, and a two pronged lance of blazing energy careened in the direction of his deadly foe, right as Grimmauld Place exploded behind him.

With an injured Hedwig gripping his shoulder, Harry Apparated away, and a split second later Number Twelve went up in flames.

But the thought on his mind wasn't Voldemort, or the destruction of his fallen Godfather's hated childhood home.

No.

Harry was certain this time, that he had heard a voice speaking into his mind, and it breathed to him one simple statement:

'_As you wish.'_

','

Lens of Sanity  
Okay, you need to read "Retroactive" by wordhammer, it's a fantastic 8K oneshot, and I was tempted to ask the author if I could Copy/Paste a direct quote about nonverbal magic from the Fic. Instead I paraphrased it here, but you should at the very least check out the original for yourself, it spells out the process amazingly well…

'Ctrl+F'_ Um, Luna. How did you cast those spells without saying anything?_


	11. School's Back In Session

','

Of Chaos and Flame  
by Lens of Sanity

','

Chapter Ten: School's Back In Session

','

"_But Tom, you promised!" Ginny Weasley scribbled the words into her diary, early winter's moonlight streaming through the high window of her empty first year dorm._

_She'd been a little put out at first to be the only first year girl in Griffindor, but at least her best friend could be counted on to be pleasant company. Even if he was being really pushy and annoying right at the moment. She'd gone to all that effort to charm the dictation quill so that it would copy the book he wanted to read, some history rubbish about the Dark Wizard Grindelwald fifty years ago, not even the interesting bits of history from before the Statue of Secrecy was signed._

"_My dear girl, you must be patient," her friend responded, his handwriting looked way more grown up than hers, but she wasn't all that jealous really._

"_You did promise, and I've been working so hard." It was strange but sometimes it was like she could _hear_ the words Tom was writing to her. "My transfiguration is much better now."_

"_Explain the Charms theory again, and we shall see," was his only response._

_Ginny did as was asked, it was very dry stuff indeed, and she'd been forced to spend all her free time in the library before coming across the explanation Tom told her about in a textbook from the third years' reading list. The eleven year old knew she was summing up what she'd learned in a stupid way, but she really _did_ understand what the book had said, Tom had to believe her by now._

"_I suppose you are beginning to have a grasp on these ideas my darling," Tom grudgingly agreed, and Ginny felt a rush of pride run through her, even so far as to imagine the pages of her diary glowed with that same pleasure._

"_So you're finally gonna teach me…" scrawled Ginny with growing excitement._

"_You asked for a powerful spell with which to smite your enemies, did you not?" The prepubescent girl bounced on her bed a few times, it was late at night now, but she'd been looking forward to this for weeks, so sleep was a distant secondary concern. "This magic is far above the level of any mere first year, but as I have said many times, you my young friend, are very special."_

"_So what do I have to do?"_

"_You will do precisely as I say?"_

"_Of course Tom, I trust you, you're my best friend."_

"_Excellent," her diary replied, and there was a feeling of satisfaction accompanying the word. "This is a combination Charm, and Transfiguration, of the order Hexus. Now you have learned enough grounding in those Arts, you are to utilise a similar skill as you used on the dictation quill. The wandmotion is as follows…"_

_The hex diagram appeared on the opposite page, neatly drawn, and straightforward enough to read, but a more complex spell by far than any she'd ever learned before._

"_This is an Animation too?" she asked, practicing the movements slowly with her grandmother's wand._

"_Correct. I assume you have the power required?"_

"_Of course I do Tom, I've told you many times. Mum always says I'm more powerful than any of my brothers, maybe even Bill when he was my age," Ginny told her friend proudly. After a few more minutes of practice the girl believed she had the spell down. "Okay, I'm ready. What's the incantation Tom?"_

_Hogwarts was great, Ginny had been looking forward to coming since before she could remember, and even though it seemed a little lonely sometimes, she was in the Castle and learning all kinds of magic. Her brothers weren't around as much as she thought they'd be, and Ron was even friends with Harry Potter, when they saw how powerful she was Ginny might even be allowed to hang around with them, saying as the girls in her year were all from different houses. Sometimes it felt like Tom was her only friend, but at least he was a good friend, willing to teach her some powerful magic at long last._

_Ginny didn't consciously go through these thoughts at the time, but they were there, as she stared with longing for her diary's response; a single word, perfectly inflected…_

"Chiroptera_"_

','

Ginevra woke in the soft embrace of warm cotton blankets, and after a few blinks and a stretch of her arms she realised she was alone in her bed, and that she wasn't in her room at the Burrow, rather a guest bedroom of her Aunt Muriel's old manor house. Extracting herself from the sheets the young woman undid the sleep braid, and her long crimson hair fell free, kissing the skin of her bare back as she went over to the wardrobe's dress mirror.

After looking her reflection in the eye for a long moment, she moved over and downed all three morning potions the Healer had prescribed, and two more she'd taken to using on a regular basis. Not bothering to dress she looked herself in the eye again for a second time, thinking back on the vivid dream, the memory which was only now beginning to fade.

She knew why her eyes looked so familiar now.

It was so bloody obvious, Ginevra thought she must be an idiot for not seeing it sooner, a blind thoughtless fool.

"So Tom," she spoke aloud, "you're still helping me. Even after all this time."

Tom always had those mesmerising eyes, shifting colours, swirling depending on how the light fell on them, always settling on a deep shade of midnight blue.

Picking up the ten inch, Hawthorn and Dragon Heartstring wand she'd stolen from Brutus Rosier, Ginevra took aim at a small porcelain doll sitting on a low shelf. Perfectly enunciating the incantation, verbally for the first time in a number of years, Ginevra slowly whispered, "_kai-_**Rop**_-ter-ah!_"

There was a massive slap, like someone had full-arm spanked the ass of her very soul, but the doll shattered into hundreds of tiny shards regardless. "Oh, that's right, still injured. No magic you silly girl!"

Asinine little childhood hex that it seemed, nevertheless it impressed her O.W.L. examiner enough that it got her an Outstanding grade in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and she'd been using it since she was an ickle first year at that! In fact, now that she took the time to think it through, all that research culminating in the Bat Bogey Hex was likely the sole reason she managed to pass her make-up exams, progressing to second year without having to re-enter with the new firsties.

_And_ it'd gotten her into Slughorn's elitist little Slug Club.

Charming a disgusting growth of mucous from her target's nose, transfiguring it into a pair of Serotine, European flying mammals, then Animating the construct, followed by imbuing the things with a malevolent sentience.

And on the surface the whole thing looked like nothing but a kiddie's prank spell.

"You knew all that at the time didn't you Tom." Gin's reflection didn't respond, his eyes taunting her from beyond the grave, _her_ _eyes_ now. "Well Harry killed you, so go get fucked."

','

She needed a Pensieve.

Ginevra heard about the one Harry used to figure out his golden spell, named for the old world goddess of intoxication and ecstatic violence, and she needed one to relive her experience in the Room of Requirement. If she was still being influenced by Tom, Ginevra had to see what he'd been making her do for herself.

Sitting at the breakfast table finishing up breakfast with her extended family, the young woman put her knife and fork together on her plait as etiquette demanded, looking over at the room with a careful eye. She couldn't ask them to track down the same Pensieve as Harry used for the obvious reason that they'd ask her _why_ she wanted it, and that would necessitate informing them she _wasn't_ actually charming her eyes a different colour for fashion and aesthetic reasons.

Which would undoubtedly lead to questions about when they had transformed from their ordinary, mild chocolate brown. And that would lead to something along the lines of; _'Oh my god Ginny, you killed twenty people, and you were laughing as you did it,' _which was about as much as she could remember about the incident in question without a Pensieve to help her.

Besides, she wasn't losing time like she had been in first year, so maybe, just maybe, something _else_ was going on. The other thing though, was the fact that the spell Tom had presumably gifted her felt _right_, it felt like fire and of coming home.

The sixteen year old woman managed to escape Muriel's, not-so-subtle attempts to corner her into a conversation Ginevra just didn't want to have and, after grabbing her book, she slipped from of the east wing entrance in search of somewhere to read in solitude.

She'd been grilled pretty thoroughly on being returned to her family by Remus Lupin, the man had still been limping as they walked into Aunt Muriel's place, hex marks from a pissed off muggleborn still visible on his too pale face. Ginevra had told and re-told the members of the Order of the Phoenix about their run it with Dolohov on Tottenham Court Road, and the subsequent smackdown between the three of them and Tom's forces on the site of the Potter graves.

Their seemed a divergence in how her listeners had taken the news. Somewhere between outright disbelief, and an absurd hopefulness that Harry Potter really would be able to kill the Dark Lord when the time came for him to do so. Ginevra obviously downplayed her own part in the fight, claiming her injured magic had made it so she mostly hid under an Invisibility Cloak, and she most certainly skimmed over how much damn _enjoyment_ she'd taken in being in a one-mistake-and-it's-over, life or death, chaotic battlefield situation.

Sitting herself beneath the shade of an English oak, out of the glare of a roasting summer sun, Ginevra cracked open Marius Carrow's _The Magick in Bloode_, finally having found enough free time to read the book she'd swiped from the Black Library almost six weeks ago now.

Attempting to lose herself in the words, thoughts kept intruding, breaking her concentration.

Was Tom still affecting her? She'd spent years having various people reassuring her that he was gone, and all those old nightmares and feelings were just in her imagination. Could they _all_ have been wrong the entire time?

Why did that spell she couldn't remember feel like it was _hers_? Fire was one thing, but that had been something else entirely.

How come she believed Harry really would have _wanted_ her to go with him, if not for the words of Headmaster Dumbledore?

And maybe worst of all, the tiny doubt. Had she always enjoyed a fight quite _that_ much?

Did any of it even matter?

','

"I've heard you are being courted by the Potter boy, Ginevra." 'Well shite, can't the crazy old bitch just leave me alone?' the girl in question thought, returning to the main building now the sun was sweeping toward the western horizon. 'She's a hundred and seven for crying out loud, she should be to fucking old to go around stalking me.'

"I've heard something similar Aunt Muriel," Ginevra replied, politely holding in a sigh at where this conversation would doubtless be headed. Maybe she could Stun her? Except for the fact that she was still fucking injured!

"Harry Potter and Arthur's seventh, that is a good match if I've ever heard one," the elderly woman told her firmly, staring the taller woman in the eyes, waiting to pounce on and crush any sign of objection. "You will do everything you can to hold his interest," Muriel ordered. "The Potters have an End of Line clause if memory serves."

"In all honesty Aunt Muriel, Harry will probably end up with my friend Hermione," she said pointlessly. "Those two have always been so close, it's like they've been practically married for years already."

"The muggleborn I met at young William's wedding, with those weak ankles?" sneered Muriel.

"Yep-," _Head of House Weasley remember, be courteous, speak using full words!_ "That is to say; You are correct Auntie Muriel."

"Nonsense girl," the woman ploughed onward like an arrow to its target. "You've childbearing hips and a bosom most would kill for. Get yourself with child and he will at least consider it. Even if he doesn't marry you, the snot-nosed brat has an outside chance of being named the Potter Heir."

"Of course Aunt Muriel," Ginevra said evenly, having known something of the like was coming as soon as the woman cornered her, "I will think carefully on your advice." _While I go track down yet another hedonist grade contraceptive potion and vomit up everything my family line has ever stood for._ "If you will excuse me, I need to…," thinking wildly for an excuse Ginevra finished, "take another round of my healing potions, I forgot to do so this morning."

Ginevra majestically swept past the ancient crone.

It didn't look like scurrying in the least.

','

The remainder of the summer dragged on, the Death Eater controlled Ministry was tightening its control on Britain, and more restrictive laws were being passed under the guise of various measures to uphold the _Security of the Wizarding World_. Oddly enough, Gin realised after a few new laws were passed, these new policies actually served to _increase_ the number of rights she had in the magical world. Bill had visited a number of times, as he was in the process of rebuilding and updating the wards around the Burrow, while Ginevra had spent most of her time relaxing, recovering, spending time with Fleur when she was around, and reading a few of the choice books she could scrounge up.

There were a couple of phrases which began popping up over the Wireless, and in everyday conversation, which Ginevra found to be amusing to various degrees. Those old sayings you hear from time to time becoming more prominent in people's day to day lives; 'All power comes from the tip of a wand,' and 'Magic means Might,' the sorts of things the older generations tend to say but had fallen out of vogue in recent years.

Another phrase which she'd laughed outright on hearing the first time was; _Undesirable Number One_… because Ginevra couldn't quite pair the title with a man who could do such incredibly _desirable_ things to a member of the opposite sex. Again Bill hadn't liked hearing her social commentary for some outlandish reason.

Whispered rumours her father overhead during his work at the Ministry stated that Scrimgeour had shown up, _somewhere_, and possibly engaged the Death Eaters in a minor skirmish or two, but they were just that; rumours. For obvious reasons news from the Prophet and other Ministry sanctioned journalists was all glowing with what a wonderful job Minister Thicknesse's administration was doing, and how there was nothing to worry about, and that everything was fine, and there was no resistance whatsoever the Death Eater takeover. And moreover that the Death Eaters _hadn't_ taken over at all, and that the Director of Magical Law Enforcement totally hadn't taken the Dark Mark, nor had he fought Neville one on one the day Ron died, and he was in fact the greatest thing which had ever happened since the invention of pumpkin juice.

The situation was all quite obvious.

At least Ginevra thought so, apparently Magical people in general had a tendency to believe everything they were told, or so she'd heard Hermione complain. The sixteen year old had never precisely noticed such a trend herself.

So it was the thirty first of August, and Ginevra was reclining on chaise lounge, a sort of unconsciously aggressive laze to her posture, staring out into the middle distance toward the south and east.

"Hey there spitfire what's up?" Bill asked, stumbling into the room, "You look bored out of your mind."

"Oh Merlin yes, yes I am," the girl responded, other than check on the potion she was brewing in two hours time, she had sweet frig all to do. "Please tell me something interesting has happened."

"I'm afraid not," he said laughing.

"Well _I'm_ a frayed knot," she growled, "I'm seriously about ready to kill something just to relieve my tedium. And I kinda wish Harry was here too, Animation Charms are one thing, but now I've experienced the real deal it's just not the same."

"_Gah!_" yelled Bill upon hearing the unnecessary addition, and Gin smirked to herself, lassitude fading noticeably. "I really don't need to hear that shit."

"Fred spoke for the first time today," the girl told him, changing the subject but not bothering to hide her amusement. "He was awake for a grand total of seven minutes, one of which he was even coherent."

"Yeah, I already know, George fire-called me while I was working on the Burrow."

"Oh right. In fact that reminds me of something," Gin said, sitting up straighter and looking at her eldest brother, "I think our family were the original inventers of floo travel."

"What? Really, why do you think that?"

"I've been reading a bit in Muriel's little library… Anyway, long story short, the Prewetts are known for occasionally showing some of the Fire Affinity magical trait correct?"

"Like Uncle Ignatius…"

"_Great_ Uncle Ignatius," she corrected.

"Like _Great_ Uncle Ignatius," replied Bill dutifully. "And I think Charlie has a touch of it too, otherwise he'd have been barbecued by those Dragons years ago."

"Yep, I agree," said Gin happily, "I've been reading this old book I found, and it's been going on about all the different Blood Gifts and Blood Curses which pop up in the old family lines. And I crossed it with something I found in Muriel's library, which seemed to indicate people with the full blown blood gift of Fire Affinity, can travel using their own internal flame."

"What's that got to do with floo-," Bill trailed off seeing she was just staring at him like he was an idiot. "Travelling by flame, got it. I guess that makes sense. Why have you been reading about that stuff for anyway?"

Ginevra raised her empty right hand without speaking, closing her eyes and focusing internally. After several heartbeats, she dropped down into the roaring, untamed chaos of her mostly recovered magic, and then felt it shift. Cracking open her lids, Ginevra's eyes blazed with midnight blue flame, and a tongue of orange-red fire popped into existence six inches above her palm.

"Pyromancy?" blurted Bill, "Wandless fire magic?" She smiled brilliantly at him, holding the small flare for a few moments longer. "That's cool."

"Too right it is!"

','

"Fucking stupid bastard," the young woman moaned in misery. Her pasty, too-white skin, and lank straw-frail hair the colour of blood, bile, and vomit clung uncomfortably to her pain wracked and wretched little body. Ginevra wanted to die. It was that simple, she'd have begged on her knees for a Killing Curse, been a dun for some syphilitic old man's heir if it would make the pounding ease for just a few moments.

It was around nine thirty in the morning of Monday September the first, nineteen ninety seven, there was a new moon, and the constellation of Virgo had ran its ninth pass since rising to prominence. But more importantly Ginevra, when her consciousness could bludgeon its way through her body's desolation, had come to the conclusion that Snape would have to die by her wand during this war.

Her wand, not Harry's.

She didn't care if he'd called it first, Ginevra would make it up to him somehow, long after the Potions turned Defence Professor's body rotted in a shallow and unmarked grave.

As she'd be returning to Hogwarts the next day ...well, later that morning now, Ginevra had decided quite reasonably to finish off the last of the firewhiskey she'd hassled Dung Fletcher into smuggling her beneath the hawk-like gaze of her mother, and no doubt aunt's stern disapproval. Which was all fine as far as it went, the young woman having had the foresight to brew an advanced Hangover Potion written and annotated in the Half Blood Prince's copy of _Advanced Potion Making_.

And when Ginevra had woken not thirty minutes previously, she'd reached over and downed the thing without so much as opening her eyes, with the results being quite different from what she'd had in mind.

Her mother came in at around ten, whispered at the volume of a thousand wrestling Giants enjoying a revel, flung open the curtains to the brain scorching horror that was morning sunlight, and basically left the recently turned sixteen year old to flail around in agony, with the command to get dressed in time for the Express.

What kind of crazy, insane, sadistic, hatefully callous madman would invent a potion which _caused_ hangovers?

','

Toppling through the communal floo to Platform 9 and ¾, Ginevra threw up what little breakfast she'd managed to scarf down, vanishing the mess quickly with a twitch her left hand. The girl was a good liar, but suspected pretty strongly that her mother hadn't bought her 'tummy upset' excuse for a single moment, and walking around trailed by sick wouldn't help her less than cunning deception.

Stuff happened, lots of stuff, and it was all doubtlessly very important. Some girl she halfway recognised slung a hex at her maybe, but she didn't notice the effects or have much brainspace remaining to care overly much in any case. Presumably Gin had told her parents goodbye at some point, and managed to get her trunk onto the train, because a few blinks, and a kind of intermittent fugue state later, the redhead noticed she was safely aboard the Hogwarts Express.

'Hey, that blurry indistinct figure kind of looks like Neville,' her mind supplied.

"I _am_ Neville," the blur roared, and her body shuddered, turning in on itself pitifully.

"G-Nerh," she whined, "please no-, not so loud."

"What the hell happened to you?" it asked, a more reasonable, if still horribly painful volume.

"Snape … Hangover Potion … Caused … Hangover … Badness."

Neville, Scion of Longbottom, and since gaining his Majority, possibly Lord of Longbottom, belted out the most beautiful, awe inspiring spell she'd ever experienced in her life, and all the horrors being visited upon her body began to ease significantly. Slowly, and over the course of several long blissful minutes, the feelings rocking through her body returned to those of a mere single night's worth of heavy drinking.

Her tongue returned to the glorious sensations of merely having been used to clean a _single_ urinal, rather than an entire football stadium filled with them, and the pounding in her head that of a troll attack rather than that of a Giant, her limbs mostly stopped shaking and her vision returned to only double.

"By the gods and magic, I've fellated guys for less than that," she told her saviour, "thank you Neville, thank you so very much."

"You're welcome Ginny," the man responded, shaking his head with amusement.

"It's Ginevra now, and try to use my surname less often if you don't mind," said the redhead after a time. "Where did you even learn a spell like that?"

"My Gran, erm-, she takes intoxicants sometimes…"

Neville obviously didn't want to go into details so she let it slide, mentally taking note to learn whatever wonderful piece of magic he'd used somewhere down the line. Ginevra got a look at her older friend, his shaggy dark blond hair had grown out noticeably since the end of his fifth year, and over the summer most of the remaining baby fat had seemed to have vanished. If she had to guess, Neville would probably overtop Harry by half a head or more now, not to mention the more powerful build the boy had been gifted with.

Blinking a couple of times on coming to a strange conclusion, the redhead voiced her thoughts, "You're starting to look like that photograph of your father back when he was in the Order."

"I am?"

"Yeah," she said slowly, right as her oldest friend Luna Lovegood came crashing through the door, slightly distracted aura of mystery draped across her shoulders as always. "What do you think Luna? Neville looks like a completely different person than the guy who came with us to the Department of Mysteries?"

Luna slumped into her seat, putting her feet up on her travelling case, before pondering the question posed her, an uncomfortable Neville Longbottom not precisely sanguine about the two witches talking about him like he weren't there.

"No," responded Luna, "this is what Neville has always been. You however smell of vomit and alcohol…"

"Oh thanks for the comment," said the redhead sarcastically.

"…sex and violence," the dreamy and unfocused voice continued as though she'd not heard, "and the world burning in chaos and flames."

"What?" Gin and Neville exploded together, on hearing that last, spoken in an offhand and distracted tone as always.

"Oh my," Luna refocused her eyes on her oldest friend, "You are a Heliopath now Ginevra? Are you also part of Former Minister Fudge's Chaotic Army?"

"What was that about the world going up in flames?"

"Whatever are you talking about Ginevra?" asked the blonde girl in response.

'Oh for the love of magic,' Ginevra thought, 'my head hurts enough already without a conversation with Luna to add to it!' Instead she just shook her head, mane of crimson hair fanning out behind her, and asked, "I heard over the Wireless there was something about Viktor Krum being injured recently, is there a story about it in the Quibbler?"

The quirky yellow haired, potentially crazed lunatic, handed over a spare magazine published by her father.

','

As Ginevra turtled behind her copy of the Quibbler, happy enough to simply spend the journey reading and occasionally chatting with Luna, the young woman couldn't help but notice one or two members of Dumbledore's Army coming by to talk every half an hour or so. Nor did it slip passed Gin's awareness that Neville seemed to be holding court with the various young men and women who were seeking him out.

At the end of last term Neville had been talking about setting up Harry's fifth year organisation on his own, and had cobbled together a fairly detailed plan by himself once it became obvious that Harry and Hermione would not be returning to sit their N.E.W.T.S. at Hogwarts. What she hadn't counted on was the apparent communication between members, Neville had been conducting under his own initiative _over the summer_, while she'd essentially spent the entire time hanging out and wasting time.

Once the plump woman pushing the trolley had left, somewhere around the halfway point in the journey, and the three who were sharing the compartment had all finished eating, Macmillan something-or-other from Harry's year came bursting through the door, waving a Prophet around in one hand, speaking in loud and garbled voice way on the far side of intelligibility.

Neville raised one hand casually, halting the Hufflepuff boy's words midsentence. "Stop," he commanded. "Take a breath, and think about what you want to say before saying it."

In the three or four heartbeats it took for the boy to wrangle his news into a workable order, Ginevra cast her mind on what she knew of the Macmillans. If memory served, the closest Macmillan connection to her own family line was probably Lucretia Flint, Ginevra's three time great aunt on her father's side, and she married into the Macmillan line in the early eighteen hundreds. Ernie, that was the guy's name, he'd be something like seventh or eighth generation magic if her suppositions were correct.

Regardless, when the seventh year Hufflepuff blurted, "Snape is the new Headmaster," and proceeded to open his Daily Prophet to page four, all of Ginevra's musings fled from her mind.

"What?" she, Luna, and Neville all asked at the same moment.

As they read the article accompanying a picture of the man's hook-nosed face, the realisation that Professor McGonagall would not be helping them as Headmistress as they'd all assumed, settled on the three main members of the DA, and that their year at Hogwarts was going to be even more challenging than they'd originally expected.

'Well, at least I might get a decent chance at poisoning Snape at any rate.'

','

Ginevra took up a lot of space sitting at the Griffindor table later that evening, scents of the sumptuous meal prepared by House-Elves caressing her olfactory senses with teasing promise, the wordless guarantee of sensate satiation. After six agonizing seconds of vacillation, the curvaceous crimson haired woman submitted to her more base desires, claiming the heavy fats of fallen animals, prepared with lavish seasonings, accompanying new potatoes boiled to perfection, and slathered in freshly churned butter.

The near orgasmic explosion of taste racked its way through Ginevra's body as first contact of her meal kissed her tongue, and she let out a small moan of pleasure, eyes closed and simply taking long moments to enjoy the sensation. When her eyes eased themselves open, the young woman noticed Colin staring at her lips, his own mouth hanging open with disbelief.

"What?"

"Erm-, N-nothing Ginny," her year mate answered, visibly crossing his legs for some reason.

The reason she'd been able to take up so much space on the Lions' table in the Great Hall, was because the number of students normally present seemed to have been reduced by a little more than a quarter of the number she was used to seeing. Muggleborns no longer welcome in the Wizarding World, and therefore unable to legally attend Hogwarts for their lessons, reducing the attendees noticeably.

It was similar to how Ginevra remembered her first year actually, her class, Harry's class, and the class a year below, all had the number of new initiates somewhere around forty of fifty students, but in later years that number had climbed to more than double. In that instant it occurred to her, this disparity must have had something to do with the First War ending, and an apparent baby boom which must have resulted from Harry's unexpected forcing of Peace on that fateful Halloween night.

Fully engrossed in her spine tingling feast, Ginevra ignored the idle conversation going on between the other Griffindors, repressing thoughts of precisely _why_ her mother stopped squeezing out litters after she'd been born. The girl thought on the surprising inclusion of Colin Creevey, obvious muggleborn, and _Boy Who Lived_ sycophant, to this year's pack of sixth year students.

Fun fact Ginevra had not been aware of until her blunt, "how the hell have you _not_ been arrested for being a muggleborn Colin?" from earlier in the day; Colin Creevey's paternal grandmother was none other than Squibby Lestrange. And another almost-as-fun fact she'd learned, was that old scandal's first name had been Ursula, not "Squibby" as everyone remembers the woman's moniker.

Slowly cleaning the last of her treacle sauce from her naked index finger, Ginevra finally allowed herself to look over to the Staff Table, eyes skipping over the absent Divination Professor's chair, toward the two new teachers, one of whom was almost certainly the doomed Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor. Eventually midnight blue chips of ice focused on Hogwarts' new Headmaster, a man Harry hated with the exact same passion that he reserved for the Dark Lord himself.

Snape stood and, gesturing for silence with his three fingered left hand, the room stilled at his command. Dumbledore's murderer spoke in a piercing voice, at first seeming flat, but somehow far more chilling when Ginevra realised a more fitting description would be _still_, curled up and waiting like a serpent readying itself to strike. The speech wasn't all that out of the ordinary, pointing out the obvious such as his new appointment as Headmaster, the removal of muggleborn students and that the school now only taught those of _"__true magical standing."_

Snape introduced the Carrows, and the young woman felt an absurd anticipation in meeting one of them to ask if they knew anything more about her book on magical trails presumably written by one of their ancestors, and this was despite the fact Amycus was not only a Death Eater like Snape and his sister, but teaching a class on "_Dark Arts_" instead of the Defence against them.

Ginevra doubted it'd stop Tom's curse on the position however, something as simple as changing a course's title would clearly have been attempted long ago, so the man would likely be injured or dead by the end of the school year.

As Snape's speech ground to a halt, and he informed the students _coddling_ of their magical training was at an end, the doors to the Great Hall burst open, slamming against the walls with a deafening crash, drawing all eyes to the back of the room.

Four men in the dark blue of Magical Law Enforces trailed behind two in the mismatched robes of full Aurors, plain and personalised as a symbol of their status, but obvious in their rank from the unconscious deference being shown the pair, and with the swaggering confidence Ginevra was used to seeing on Kingsley and to a slightly lesser extent Tonks. Recognising neither the broad shouldered man, nor the tall, slimly built female partner, as the procession of six stomped their way up to the Headmaster, Ginevra watched on with interest, alongside the rest of her fellow students.

Following a short, whispered conversation with the dark robed Headmaster, the two Aurors commanded their escort with negligent hand gestures, all six bearing down on the student who was evidently their target:

"Ginevra Molly Weasley, you are under arrest for the Murder of Thorfinn Rowle on the 27th of June 1997."

','

Lens of Sanity  
Creepy Creevey being related to the Lestranges is standard Fanon, I've read it a bunch of times, Thanfiction originally? The Hangover Potion, I swiped but can't remember from where, let me know if I owe you credit.  
And possibly for the first time ever, this chapter has an idea I came up with myself _*fanfare!*_ Instead of disidentifying with the Bay-Bogey Hex like I originally planned, I thought about it, and came to the conclusion it's more insidious than it seems at first glance.  
If _Voldemort_ was the spell's inventor, and _that's_ where Ginny learned it… well, implications are kinda chilling.


End file.
